Issue 25: | 22 Sept. 2024 |
Microfiction: | 243 words |
You just find yourself here. All the eclairs you can eat and no heart attacks. Split level, Caribbean-view walk-out chocolate layer cake with infinity orgasms. Your wife is here, even though she’s not dead yet. God does that. Two-hour naps hang from all the trees, and after you indulge, a guy comes to the door with a good night’s sleep on a velvet pillow, like a tiara made of dreams. You can microwave fish and chicken tikka masala at the office and nobody leans over your cubicle to give you shit. Nothing aches. Right? And you can walk around barefoot and never step on jacks left by your son on the shag rug. That kid: blessed to have none of you in him but all of him in you, which is a godsend. So to speak. Light rain, all day, and a book with pages of your wife’s breath. Then there’s this thing you really wanted to do, but denied yourself until failing asbestos insulation did what nicotine could not. You take up cigarettes. And drive with the top down through wheat with no destination. Just sky and gold grain, the cigarette between your fingers, hanging out the window, with Buddy Holly on the radio. Your wife would be there, smiling, singing along. And sharing your soft-serve with Waldo’s tongue, drooling vanilla runoff onto the center console while you laugh your asses off at how the cone keeps refilling itself. Forever.
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