Tagged: flash fiction

“Friday was good. Saturday was good.” – A Short Story.

Whatever similarity the following short story has to a real conversation last night, a conversation between a husband and wife, I assure the reader that the account is one sided and therefore pure fiction—at least according to all the women.

Our south facing bedroom was dark and remained so despite the sounds of a few belated fireworks which our extraordinarily wealthy and patriotic neighbors to the north were letting fly. I had just plugged my phone in and put it in its final resting place on the nightstand. I remained on my side, facing out, my back to my wife. I had a good amount of covers to work with and couldn’t help but release a final chuckle-turned-outright-laugh at The Office blooper short we had just watched.

Friday was good. Saturday was good. Today had been alright.

There was a pleasant mood for those two days as my wife, bless her heart, had not had a chance in hell to work and so was herself at ease and agreeable for once. She seemed to have truly come to peace with the fact that the great serpent of old, the one with the red, scaly appearance and bifurcated tongue, seemed to genuinely not be her husband. Can you understand what I am trying to say, reader? Married life felt kind of normal.

I decided to test the waters and say something true. I knew it was a risk, but I was feeling risky.

“J- seems to actually need a few days to warm up to me every week that I am home. It’s like he becomes softer as the days go by,” I said. Truth be told, halfway through my brief report, I started to wonder if she was even awake anymore.

“I don’t understand, Baliye,” she replied.

I suppose I ought to clarify here that Baliye is her heathen tongue’s ‘my husband’.

“I’m saying,” I started again, “that I can feel that J-, while happy to see me when I first come back home from my week away, seems to take a few days before he fully relaxes and becomes himself. It’s hard to pick exact behavior differences, but I feel it,” I continued. I didn’t share the one instance that was on my mind, the at church earlier when I had pulled him back from the center aisle into the pew. I sat him next to me again and looked down at him, placing my stern, glaring but sparkly-eyed face right over his. He looked up at me and purposely bonked his nose into mine. He does that sometimes. But not on day one, two, or three. Anyhow, I continued, “And the other week, when I was making a trip to load the car before leaving, he actually burst out crying, saying he thought he told me that he wanted a hug before I left.”

I paused for a few seconds. And then picked it up again, “It’s hard to believe he will actually be home for one more whole year before he goes off to kindergarten.”

I had done it. Or I had thought I had done it. I have long held the belief, informed by who knows what, that women, even depressed, selfish, greedy, complaining wives, want to hear what their husbands really think and notice about the family. Like I thought there was a universal truth: every wife, at any moment loves to hear her husband express something that sounds vulnerable and comes across as intimate.

I was proud. Dare I say I thought I deserved a reward? No, I dare not. I honestly just felt like giving. Like I said, Friday was good and Saturday was good.

She then says, “There is a school nearby, R-, I think-”

-there is no force as yet studied by students of natural science that can cause boiling faster than the words I was hearing-

“-which has a preschool, like three days a week.”

(Here the copy of this fictional tale which I found seems to be missing a paragraph of caps-lock ferociousness.)

She responds, “You said what you think. But I can’t say what I think?”

I think is she genuinely unaware of how conversations work? “No, mee-stee-yay, no. You don’t get to say what you think. Not when the person who spoke before you just expressed how happy they were at a set of circumstances and your thought is a brainstorm of how to destroy those circumstances.” (Mistiye is the heathen ‘my wife’.)

Friday was good. Saturday was good.

On Noble Pleasure

Anyone else, for whatever reason—be it environmental considerations or energy (mine is energy)—refuse to turn on hot water to wash their hands? And given this state of play, then, every so once in a while, wash them right after someone who isn’t so aware, and, for the briefest of moments, feel just regal as the still-warm water hits? For my part, I imagine the pleasure is exactly comparable to what it must have felt like to sneak a dessert made with the richest, purest, and freshest ingredients right off the King’s china after he had departed—and before the other (reckless and shifty as they were) servants entered—the hall.

On Being a “One Mistake” Man

It just occurred to me that I am a “one mistake” man. The way this came to mind just now was while driving. Picture me in the classic post-stoplight intersection need to merge right (to get to Freddy’s) and there are cars zipping into the new right lane with whom I need to merge. Rather, we all need to zipper merge.

If you drive a good car and can’t merge, I respect you—you’re probably just decompressing from a hard days work. If you drive a disproportionately small car for an adult man who can grow a decent beard and can’t merge, then that’s one mistake too many. And I do not respect you anymore.

One mistake at a time please.

Two Updates on the Boy Child

First, during my attempt to get more of the cookie for myself, when I told him that the cookie was very big, J- innocently said, “My mouth is big!”

Second, we have this game Poop Tracks which is actually a pretty fantastic board game for little kids (if you care to have them turn into Tom Brown Jr.-like trackers). You spin a spinner and do what it says. The options are, “Draw 1 (or 2), Trade, Swipe, or Skip.” Naturally, I take it upon myself to teach my progeny the proper way to trade and swipe. And, naturally, the proper way to swipe is through distraction. So my kids now look forward to the spinner landing on “swipe” so they can say, “Look at that, Dad!” before proceeding to take one if my cards. Well, just now, as J- and I (A- is now in kindergarten 😦 ) were having a donut, he says, “Look out the window, Day-ad!” Obviously he was priming me for the take, but for what? I played along and then he swiped my napkin. What a guy!

A Lesson that Requires Pocket Change

My friend, an older, heavyset gentlemen, keeps his story going with, “It’s about listening. You gotta teach the kids how to listen.”

Here he pauses and apologizes as he needs a break. He often needs to take a break, but doesn’t seem too concerned with the underlying medical condition.

The cloudiness disappears and he resumes.

“I teach my grandkids how to listen by placing a penny on the palm of my hand right here-” here he holds out his left hand, palm facing me, and points to the spot where I have always assumed street magicians palm the coin.

He continues, “Then I place a nickel next to it and a quarter next to the nickel. Then I tell the kids, ‘Johnny’s mom had three kids. Penny, Nick, and ??’”

The man turns to me, and I open my eyes larger than normal, while raising my eyebrows. I mean to merely indicate that I am not ready for an interactive moment, but I also admit that I don’t yet understand anything from this listening lesson.

“It requires the coins. Who has some coins?”

I follow him to the table where some other men are sitting and my friend asks the leader and most responsible of us, “Jim, do you have any coins? I need a penny, a nickel and a quarter.”

Surprisingly, and as predicted, Jim pulls a 1986-sized fistful of pocket change out of his shorts’ pocket and finds the required coinage.

My friend then places the coins in his palm, penny, nickel, quarter. Jim is paying attention, but the previous conversation he was apart of continues to unfold as well.

“Johnny’s mom had three kids. Penny, Nick, and ??”

Wishing to show my language prowess, I forget about the spelling of ‘quarter’ and begin to contemplate every name that starts with the ‘kwart’ sound.

“Kwart? Kurt?” I guess.

Shaking his head in shame, my friend repeats, “Johnny’s-”

“JOHNNY!” I exclaim, joyfully. “Johnny,” I then repeat, with a pronounced note and loud look of playful disgust.

Jim knowingly smiles.

My friend says to him, “You’ve heard this one before, huh?”

A slow nod from Jim answers.

“You see, Pete, someone has to teach them how to listen.”

****

Here’s the catch, faithful reader. Anyone who gets the right answer already knows how to listen. The all important and usually lacking skill in the human, imho, that my friend taught his grandkids (and I) is humility.

Just Have To Smile

When you work at an airport and shortly after arriving see and hear a brightly colored colored biplane suddenly appear from behind your hangar on what, by altitude and position, must be its base turn, looking like it is the one that needs saving from the opening scene of Disney’s The Rocketeer, you just have to smile.

Rougher Work Week

In Heat, the cop played by Pacino returns late to the ritzy bar his wife lingered at and she starts in with, “And I bought into sharing. But this isn’t sharing. This is leftovers.” (Or what is the same.)

Pacino responds, “Oh I get it. You want me to come home and tell you that some junkie just put his baby in the microwave because it was crying too much. And somehow this will…” and on and on. (Or similar.)

Later in the movie while desperately trying to keep someone he knows alive, he says, “Not you, baby.”

Suffice it to say, these scenes, not the particulars but the emotions and complications, come straight from real life—which I would say is exactly why I love that movie and have always loved that movie.

In real life, as I have written before, my own reaction is a sudden and unaccounted for need to cry. I didn’t this time. But all the necessary variables were in play.

There is a great desire to ask, “What can fix the scene(s)?” Or “How can we help people?”

But I have come to believe, “This is the scene. You don’t fix it. You don’t help. You just play your role. And you hope that your society has good roles.”

From the earliest age I knew my role was “anonymous, systematized, called-in relief”.

It’s mostly rewarding.

My 4-Yr Old Recognized Beauty

She FT’d me as they were walking into the garage to leave for mega-church. The door opened, and the way she holds the camera it was difficult to not notice the barely cloud-speckled blue sky. Then I saw she did too. And without prompting she said, “It’s a beautiful day,” and faded almost into a hum, “in the neighborhood,” which is of course from Daniel the Tiger or whatever the name of the Mr. Roger’s-based show is called. (Not that she has seen it in several months since I tossed the TV, but I feel like being clear that she isn’t an abstract idea floating around in the aether, but a little girl.)

Anyhow, it’s true.

And that’s the point I want to make to all you anxiety-driven, suicide-prone, depression-claimants. Take a look at the lilies of the field. If my four year old can see them, then surely they are there.