After the Accident (a 200-word suspense, horror flash fiction short story) by Oren Shafir

When she saw my face, my wife threw up right there on the hospital room floor. She tried to grab the trashcan, but most of it missed. I don't know what she'd had for breakfast, but there was a lot of it.

It didn't bother me though. For one thing, my sense of smell had been damaged, and anyway, by then, I already knew what I looked like.

After she'd cleaned up her mess and straightened herself out, I said, "Disappointed to see me like this?

She tried to look at me then.

I mean, you know, alive?" I added.

She began to protest, but I said, "Relax, I was only teasing you. Oh but that's right, you can't tell when I'm teasing anymore because I no longer blush like I used to. I'm blushing inside, though, you just can't tell," I said.

She did look at me for a moment then.

"Because I no longer have any cheeks."

I thought she might throw up again.

"On the other hand," I continued, "when I asked you just now if you were disappointed to see me - I mean, you know, alive and all - your cheeks turned beet red."