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MacQueen’s Quinterly: Knock-your-socks-off Art and Literature
Issue 24: 30 Aug. 2024
Microfiction: 399 words
By Anne Anthony

“Lived Happily Ever After” Currently Out of Stock;
Select a Different Ending

 

PRODUCT RESULTS FOR “ENDINGS”


BEST SELLER: Purplish-prose

She walks through the front door and hearing Barney, the purple dinosaur, singing on the television, she twirls into the living room crooning “I Love You” in perfect pitch to her husband and baby girl.

 

LIMITED TIME DEAL: Rush-rush-rush

She walks through the front door, an hour late, rushes to the kitchen, notices a chat window on her husband’s open laptop, notices a chat conversation between him and some woman, notices an attached photo file, yet closes his laptop having noticed he hasn’t started dinner.

 

ELIGIBLE FOR FREE SHIPPING: Felt-like

She walks through the front door and—whoosh—is swallowed into a sinkhole, into a free fall, into a crash landing. No broken bones but fractured.

 

POPULAR PICK: Wished-for

She never walks through the door.

 

OVERALL PICK: Real-life

She walks through the front door, drops her briefcase, shrugs off her suit jacket, smiles at her daughter singing Barney the Dinosaur’s “I Love You,” asks Where’s Daddy?—but receives no answer—heads for the kitchen, glances at her husband’s laptop, notices a chat window left open to a conversation between him and some woman, clicks the link to a revealing photo of bare breasts, sits down, searches the Picture folder, unearths photos—hundreds of nipples and manicured nails spreading flesh—all sent to her out-of-work-for-months husband, and snaps the laptop closed. Breathes hard, swallows hard, and presses the palm of her hand hard against the top of her thigh which refuses to stop shaking.

 

OUT OF STOCK: Lived-happily-ever-after

She walks through the front door, kicks off her heels, smiles at her daughter singing, and heads for the kitchen, notices her husband’s laptop left open to a revealing photo of bare breasts, and reads an exchange.

I can send you more.
Don’t bother. My wife is all the woman I need.

She searches the Picture folder, discovers hundreds of family photos, including the cats, and when her husband appears in the doorway, he explains he’d left his laptop open to answer the phone, explains he received a job offer finally, and explains the woman’s message popped up like black magic; he deletes the text and photo and yells to their daughter: Go wash your hands. Dinner’s ready!

 

 

Bio: Anne Anthony

 
 
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