I wake up early for work. My wife wakes up late.
By the time she gets home from work, I’m either asleep or falling asleep.
We rarely see each other during the week.
The cats love this arrangement. It means they have someone around almost all of the time to beg for treats.
We don’t, but until we win the lottery or get jobs with better schedules, it’s how things are.
I go to sleep, hugging a pillow, and when my wife wakes me up, I hand it to her.
It smells like both of us.
The cats love it.
Tag: romance
Flower Shop
The whole town loves Evelyn’s flower shop.
It’s a nice store, right there on Main Street.
The awning needs a bit of work. And the paint’s faded on the glass on the door.
She keeps saying she’ll touch it up, but she never does.
The flowers are pretty. She grows them herself in greenhouses behind her house, right outside of town.
There, she plants the seeds, keeps the plants fed and watered.
She cuts her finger, sings the magic spell, and rubs the blood on silver shears.
Snip.
Snip.
And we all love her shop just a little bit more.
Dumped
Missy broke up with her latest?
Didn’t she say this was The One?
He was perfect. They were perfect together.
All that lovey-dovey crap on her Facebook and shit?
Yeah, I thought so.
So, The One dumped her. Like all the rest.
Man, what a shame.
That makes how many this year?
I don’t know either. I lost count at ten.
Remember The Price Is Right?
Yeah, the game show.
They had a mountain climber game.
He’d yodel all the way up the mountain.
The more wrong you were, the louder and higher he got.
Higher… louder… higher…
Then… splat.
The Gift Bear
I went to the Build-a-Bear store in the mall.
Where you pick out an empty teddy bear
Or panda
Or kitty
Then you pick out clothes for it:
A baseball uniform
Ballet slippers. And a tutu
A wedding dress
You can record a message, too.
I like crazy messages:
“Help, I’m trapped in a bear factory!”
“I’m filled with heroin.”
At a red light, I squeeze it’s paw.
“I love you,” it says.
I feel the bruise on my face.
I remember you hitting me.
Again. And again.
Love you? The craziest message of all.
I throw the bear away.
Success
She kept a suitcase packed and ready.
Success was right around the corner. She knew it was coming. It would knock on her door at any moment.
It never came.
Oh, sure… Success sent emails and left phone messages and mailed her a few postcards begging her to come out and see him.
Remember the floral arrangements? She was allergic to flowers, but not these. Success was very thoughtful and did the research and found these flowers for her.
And she still wouldn’t leave. Success had to come to her.
“It doesn’t work that way,” wrote Success. “Goodbye, my love.”
It Worked
Walking home from school, a woman in a strange silver diving suit stopped me, kneeled down, and whispered “It worked.”
Then she kissed me on the forehead before diving into a flash of light… and she was gone.
Over the years, from school, through university, to the chronosuit research… searching for her.
And I found her.
Those eyes. Those bright eyes.
She was the granddaughter of my research partner.
She learned quickly, taking our research so far.
She tells me she’s ready to test it, wants me to see it work.
“I already have,” I say, and close my eyes.
Poe
For decades, a stranger in a long coat, scarf and hat would leave three roses and a half-empty bottle of cognac at the grave of Edgar Allen Poe on the writer’s birthday.
But recently, the stranger has failed to show up, and people are starting to worry.
Has the stranger gone forever?
What happened to them?
I’m sad about the loss of another of life’s romantic mysteries.
There’s no more Bermuda Triangle.
Or Bigfoot.
Or Loch Ness Monster.
No miracles, no monsters.
All of the things we knew not to be true but still believed in are fading away.
Gone.
Swan Lake
My girlfriend said we’re going to Swan Lake on Friday night.
Good. It’s been a while since I’ve been hunting.
She’s always chewing me out for killing animals, making me do all these high-falootin society ballets and symphonies
She’s finally come around and seen things my way.
I packed my shotguns, ammo, gear, and other essentials into the truck and drove to her place to pick her up.
She was made up and dressed up all gorgeous.
“Honey, you look wonderful, but that’s gonna get all messed up at the lake,” I said.
Thank God I didn’t load the shotguns.
Torrid
Fred opened up his CAD program, drew a circle, and then revolved it on a plane around a point.
He colored the resulting donut shape pink.
Then, he revolved a blue rectangle… it looked like a disk with a hole in it.
Triangle… a pentagon… a hexagon… other shapes…
The screen filled quickly.
He looked around for the original pink donut he’d made… gone?
So was the blue disk.
Searching… searching… searching…
He found them in a server in Hawaii, happily interlocked in each others’ axes.
Let them enjoy their toroid love affair, he thought, and shut down his workstation.
Quarter
Susan and I were in our usual booth at the coffee shop.
Two cups of coffee on the table, mine black and hers with cream and sugar.
She’s got her iPad out, Facebooking.
Then, she takes a napkin from the dispenser, jots down a note, flicks the pad some more.
“Can’t you just tap that out on the pad?” I ask.
She doesn’t even look up from the pad. “What?”
I take a quarter out of my pocket, plink it against the table, *plerp* into the cup.
She picks up the cup, sips.
Doesn’t even notice.
I pay and leave.