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aaronbleyaert · 2 years ago

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Magic Mike

Two men are riding in a car. One is eating a sandwich.

How can you eat like that? Like what? What do you mean like what. Have you ever watched yourself eat? Watched myself eat? Why would I watch myself eat? I don't know, maybe once you caught a reflection of yourself in the mirror or something. It's a sight. Monsters don't have reflections, dummy. That's vampires. And you? A monster? How many arms you broken, yeah? How many debts you collected? Enough. Or none. I've done stuff. Aye. Don’t I know it. But it wasn't without me twisting your arm. You, twisting somebody's arm. Don't make me laugh. Beast twisting somebody's arm, then. But I'm the one who tells him to do it. So it might as well be me. If that’s what you want to believe. What I want to believe. You're a monster, aye. A bad boy. Ooooh. Fine. You’re the monster, then. The tougher of us two. Happy? You done eating? Not yet. Then no. I’m not happy. And I won’t be for a while, from the looks of it. Just look away, if it bothers you. I am looking away. I’ve got to keep my eyes on the road. One of us should, yeah. Yeah, and since I’m driving, probably best it’s me. So then how is my eating a problem? If you’re not looking? It’s the noise, Benny. The noise. What about the noise? It’s like sitting next to a pig rooting through the loose guts of a rotting corpse. Well. That’s descriptive. You can thank my liberal arts education for that. And your pa for paying for it. I paid for it. No, he paid for it. Well I paid him back. That’s not the same thing. In full. Yes it is. How’s that? If you pay someone back, your debt is erased. Like it never happened. Like it never happened. Right. But if you don't, then anything can happen.

Anything. The scales gotta be balanced, Benny. And that's where we come in. I come in. Beast you mean. My point us, the things we do, that we have to do, they’re not about good and evil or whether it makes us monsters or not. You can’t think like that. None of what we do is up to us - we're just messengers of the divine, so to speak. Instruments of a higher power. Is that what you're calling your pa these days? "A higher power"? You're missing the point. Oh, you have one? Other than you're a terrible eater? Yeah. My point is that we do what we do because we have to. It doesn’t make us monsters. It’s just a way to make a living. Not a very good one. Is that your reason for all the gambling? It’s not the reason, but it’s a reason. Borrowing money from pa I heard? I have. And not paying it back? When I win I will. When. That’s right. Heard you did. Pay him back? Won. Is that what people say? That’s what people say. And that you were a bit obnoxious about it. A bit flashy, they said. If that’s what you want to believe. It's not belief, it's fact. Fact. Yeah. Like how the Earth goes round the Sun. Or how the human head is still alive for six seconds after being chopped off. Bullshit. Six seconds. Fact. Your liberal arts education teach you that? Not exactly. Beast? Aye. Well. I wonder where he learned that. I don't. I try not to wonder anything about Beast, actually. Agreed.

The men ride in silence for a long moment.

Do you think he learned the head thing from Google or experience? Beast? Yeah. Experience. Wonderful. Agreed. Isn't science grand? Not the word I’d use. Horrific, maybe. Think the head thing is crazy? Listen to this: Take it away, liberal arts. Don’t be mad because you’re dumb. I'm not. Mad or dumb? Amused. Science has stories that defy belief, Benny. Defy belief. I don't know. I believe in a lot. Not napkins, apparently. Made your point. Can't a man eat in peace? In theory, but all I see is violence. Hear. All I hear is violence. Hasn't that poor chicken sandwich had enough? Not sure about the sandwich, but I've certainly had enough! Okay. Don't lose your head. I like to, but then I’d still hear your nagging voice for another six seconds. Why do you keep talking when you have nothing interesting to say. Point taken. I doubt it. You want interesting? Okay. There was this chicken, yeah? Who got it’s head cut off and still lived for a year and a half. Fuck off. Hand to god. Walked around and everything. Did it squawk? It didn't have a head, Benny. You miss that part? How’d it survive then, Liberal Arts? On kind words from strangers? They squirted food into its neck with an eyedropper. Gross. Not compared to the way you eat. “A pig eating a corpse” yeah I got it. Who chopped the chicken up? A mad scientist trying to create a Frankenfowl? Not even. It was accidental, like. A farmer’s wife told her hubby to go kill a chicken for supper - Supper. Supper, yeah. So he goes out back, picks a chicken, swings the axe, and boom! Botched it. Cut off the head, missed the arteries and such. And such. Yeah. How do you cut off the head but miss the arteries and such? Dunno. Miracle, I guess. Touched by an angel and all that. Frankly, I think the angels should keep their hands to themselves. But get this: Not only does this headless chicken live - With its arteries and such - - it lives for another year and a half. The farmer took it on tour and everything. Made two hundred grand. Named him Magic Mike. Magic mike. Yeah. 200 grand. Yeah. That’s a lot of chicken sandwiches. Yeah. Magic Mike. How’d he die? Choked to death. Come on. Hand to god. On what? Piece of corn. Magic Mike. Killed by by corn. Abracadabra. Benny takes another big bite. Jesus Christ. Mouth full. What?

Tug gives Benny a look and pulls to the side of the road. The car slows, then stops. Tug puts it in park and turns off the engine.

Why are we stopping here? I can’t do this. Do what? This. Drive. While you eat. It’s dangerous. Come on. You come on. It’s that distracting? Get real. Trust me. The sound of you eating is as real as it gets. Fine. I’ll save it for later. No, please. By all means. No, now I feel bad. Let’s just go. We’ve got work to do. Now he's worried about work. I’m not worried about it. I just - I lost my appetite. No you haven’t. You’re right. I haven’t. But I can’t eat with you watching. But you could eat with me listening? Just - just look away and keep talking. Tell me about the headless chicken. How can you eat chicken while I'm telling you a story about a headless chicken?

Benny takes another big bite and shrugs. Tug looks away, out the window.

This bird, Magic Mike. They took it on tour, and it was getting pretty well known - and, most importantly, it was making the farmer and his wife a pretty penny. They had both quit their jobs and had constructed a comfortable life - just by living off the chicken money - so when Fate dropped a kernel of corn down Magic Mike’s open gullet and he died, the farmer nd his wife didn’t tell anyone about it right away. No, they kept it a secret and just canceled a few tour dates. They had come to depend on Mike’s Magic and needed that gravy train to keep rolling. But what could be done? Just one thing. The only thing, really: They had to get another headless chicken. By hook or by crook. Whatever it took. That farmer must have slaughtered two dozen innocent birds trying to replicate his original mistake.

The car is silent except for the sound of Benny’s chewing. Tug closes his eyes.

But tried as he may, he couldn’t do it. They say that experience, the days and days of senselessly slaughtering all those chickens, broke the farmer and his wife. It was clear they weren’t going to be able to replace Magic Mike. The money was gone as quickly as it had come, and they hadn’t saved any of it. They were broke. Even worse, they hadn't used any of the money to pay off their debts. The magic was over.

Ah, I get it. Get what? Why you’re telling me this story. I get it. Why do you think I’m telling you this story? It’s where we’re going. Where we’re going? Yeah. We’re going to make em pay. The farmer and his wife. Their chicken dies, they’re broke as smoke, they borrow money from your pa, and now we’re going to collect it. That’s why you’re telling me the story. Not exactly. Which part? All of it. The farmer and his wife are already dead. Whoa. You sent Beast first? Before us? Benny. The farmer and his wife died forty years ago. That’s not why I’m telling you the story.

Another car pulls up behind them and parks. Benny sees it in the rearview mirror and suddenly puts down his sandwich.

What? Nothing. Eat up. I - I'm full. You sure? Yeah. Can we get going now? Don't you want to hear the rest of the story? Not really. See, the farmer had been living a pretty flashy life. They found that they liked buying expensive things, even if it meant they had to borrow a few dollars here and there. Why are we stopped here? They had been in the papers quite a bit - and they found that they liked being in the papers. Why here? Wait, is this - Put another way: They owed powerful people money and they were obnoxious about it. Any of this sounding familiar? Oh god. If you pay someone back, your debt is erased. Like it never happened. Tug, I - But if you don't, Benny - anything can happen.

Benny is silent. Someone knocks on the window. Benny rolls down the window and looks up at Beast.

Tug, I - Get out of the car, Benny. Don't do this. My actions aren’t up to me, Benny. But that doesn’t make me a bad person. That’s a fact. Yeah, that’s a fact. I've got the money. Look, I can pay him back right now. We can all just walk away. Get out of the car, Benny. Tell your pa I can - GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE CAR. I take it back. You are a mons--

Beast opens the door and drags Benny away.

Tug watches in the mirror for a few moments, then picks up the sandwich and takes a bite.

Aye.

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aaronbleyaert · 5 years ago

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Tomorrow is a Hundred Years Away

And even as I’m pouring the last drops of our second pot of coffee in your cup I’m still trying to tell myself that I’m not going to make another pot, but even my own mind can’t keep a straight face at the thought. I decide to pretend a third pot was the plan all along and pour the water in for another go before bringing your coffee back and setting it down with a little flourish.

You sit as you do, as we do, every morning, at our big ugly kitchen table: two 30 somethings who are more than happy to slowly sink into the staid portrait of a classic old married couple. We sit side by side, our legs touching, comfortable in the warm silence our two bodies create. The very thing that my teenage self feared most has come to pass: I'm living the life of a happily married woman, wife to a man I adore. The horror of comfort! The terror of wedded bliss! All of those years spent scared of being tied down, of being locked in a marital prison; all for naught. My life, this life, here with you - the whole thing almost feels like too much to wish for.

I watch as you gaze out the window, trying to burn it into my memory. “Remember this, Stephanie.” I think. “Remember, remember, remember.” I try to lock this moment, this one perfect moment, right now, here, of you and I just like this, away down deep where it can’t be touched. Where it can live, somewhere inside of me, forever.

Of everything I’ll lose in the next few months, moments like these are what I’ll miss the most.

I remember when you and I sat here - looking out this window, just like we are now - for the first time. That first early morning, having our first coffee together in this house, looking out at the tendrils of early morning mist still stubbornly clinging to the tops of the pines; I remember how the trees seem to stretch out forever like a lush green carpet across the valley before disappearing off into the low hanging clouds in the distant sky. It felt like all the good in our lives was laid out right there in front of us, just waiting for us to step forward into the future and live it.

“Would you look at that” you said on that morning, a little kid giddy with excitement. “The trees, the clouds, the sky, the world, the planets, the stars; all of it right out there, right outside our humble kitchen window. The whole sum total of existence, all trapped behind a single pane of glass.”

We sat there in quiet reverence, knees touching, marveling at the vast beauty of the world beyond our window - breathless at the thought that nothing less than the all of existence was sole spectator to you and I, and that moment: Our first morning spent together. I remember gently knocking wood; a quiet wish that this moment would last forever - or that somehow, in some future life, I could live this moment again, Over and over and over, for eternity.

“What a sight.” I said.

And then you leaned over and kissed me.

Looking back at my life, at our life, that moment is maybe the happiest I've ever been. I wanted to trap it like a firefly in amber and live inside it for a hundred million years. But, of course, the Great Unspoken Tragedy of Time is that it keeps gently nudging us forward, ushering us past what truly matters while muddying the clear waters of purpose with petty wishes and self-important worries. Eyes up! Face forward! Onward! Onward! A brighter future lies just around the corner, it says! A better life! All the while, the happier tomorrow is quietly slipping by the beautiful present into the yearned for yesterday. The next moment is always only a moment away - whether or not you want it to be. We cannot make a home in the present, so we must make that home in our memories. And to lose that home is to lose everything.

Not wanting time to push me forward into the next few minutes and the confession I have to make, I look down and watch my fingers trace the raised patterns of thick paint on the table. God. This table. If there is anything in all of creation that is completely impervious to time - and not to mention ugly - it is our kitchen table.

This thing must weigh a million pounds. A heavy hideous stout old beast slathered with cheap white paint, it’s almost pretty. Like one of those ugly dogs that are cute, it’s where hideous and adorable meet back on the other side. It’s my secret hope that the table is actually made from some kind of beautiful wood; Walnut, or Rosewood. Something valuable. Or Teak: The wood of royals. Wouldn’t that be a trip? Something majestic under all this crap paint? As the doctor visits have mounted and my life has started to come apart these past few weeks, it’s been all I can do to not take a steak knife and scratch off a little of the paint to take a peek underneath to see if my suspicions are true. I can just see the Antique Roadshow now:

“Stephanie: Good news! Your boring old kitchen table is actually a teak treasure from the jungles of India, brought by the explorer Francisco de Almeida in the year 1505! How did you come about it?”

“Well, Mark, it’s a funny story; it was actually our kitchen table for years and years, just sitting there, quietly, as we had our coffee every morning. Anyway, one day - ”

“Wow. How funny.”

“Right? Anyway, one day I had been going through a lot of medical trauma and so to distract myself thought just popped into my head: What if there was something special about our ugly table?”

“Something special, Stephanie?”

“Yes! Something special - you see, it used to be covered in this awful white paint.”

“Thick, cheap, white paint?”

“Yes, Mark. Exactly.” (audience laughs)

“Oh no!”

“Oh yes! And I just started thinking: This table, this ugly, heavy, but otherwise rather unassuming white table - what if there was something more to it? Something special, underneath? Something more beautiful than what we could see on the outsi - “

Hey, what are you thinking about?

I blink quickly, and look up, returning from the Roadshow set to your kitchen. Our kitchen.

Nothing, I say. Why?

You just looked like you were thinking of something funny.

I look back down at the table, at the white paint. I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding.

I open my mouth to tell you my theory about the table and its secrets, about the Antique Roadshow bit with the 1505 Francisco story in this Mark voice I made up - but instead what comes out of my mouth is not the theory about our (your) table and its exotic secret, but instead it’s the thing I need to tell you. The thing I’ve been needing to tell you for weeks. The Truth.

I’m sick.

I’m really really sick. Like, the kind of sick where people don’t get better sick. I hear myself using some of the same words the doctors used when they told me: Rare, Degenerative, and eventually, the only word that matters in these sorts of cases: Terminal.

You look at me in disbelief, your wide, beautiful eyes not wanting to accept what I’m saying - much the same way, I imagine, as I looked at the doctor when she told me the news. Only she also used other, bigger, more doctory words like “transmissible spongiform encephalopathy”. I don’t tell you these words; it feels like to say them aloud would be too much like dark magic; too much like summoning an evil I don’t want. Although, at this point, what’s one more curse on top what I’ve already got?

You look down at your hands. You look at them for a long time. I wonder what you’re thinking. Then you quietly ask how much time we have left. I notice you say we, not me. You’re sweet.

I press my bare feet into the cold kitchen floor, trying not to cry and trying to figure out how best to tell you the truth without actually having to say it out loud. The silence settles around us like a dark cloud; a flock of big black birds, all watching with their beady eyes, waiting for an answer. Minutes pass. The clock ticks quietly in the hall.

It’s when I tell you how long that you finally start crying. We lean into each other, our bodies comforting each other in their own way. Our coffees sit on the big ugly table, untouched, steam rising lazily into the cool morning air.

Definitely shouldn’t have made that third pot.

***

When I was a kid, I lived next to this kid named Phillip. It was never Phil, just Phillip. One Summer, Phillip and I for some reason became obsessed with digging this hole. I don’t honestly remember how it started; maybe one of us had seen something on time capsules, or maybe we wanted to try to find out if the water table really existed. Whatever. Kids are stupid.

What I do remember is that, one day after school, Phillip and I for some reason started digging this hole on the side of his house. And every day after that, after school, we would run home, go back to the side of his house, and work on The Hole. Deeper and deeper. Wider. Steeper. Down down down. You’d think that we’d get sick of it - after all, you’re just digging a deep dumb hole, there’s nothing down there but more dirt you dummies - but that wasn’t the way we saw it. To us, it wasn’t just a hole; every spade of earth we turned over was a chance for a new forbidden discovery, a new illicit thrill. Arrowheads! Haunted pottery! Old machine parts! Every day we ran to The Hole, shovels in hand, with the same thought: What new thing would we discover today? What new piece of magic lay secretly buried, all these years, just out of sight, waiting to be discovered and pulled up into the light to be born into a spectacular new life? What beauty lay hidden just under our feet, lost down there in the cold black earth?

Our all-consuming daily digging obsession went on and on past the end of the school year and well across that whole summer; The Hole got so big and deep that we started putting a tarp over it to keep the rain out so it wouldn’t become a flooded mess. In the end though, it met its fate like all childhood adventures: Boring reality butted in. One day, Phillip’s dad walked around the side of the house, found the hole, and made us fill it in. When we protested, he just shook his head: “You spent your whole summer on a hole. Youth is wasted on the young.”

***

My brain is so weird; sometimes I think it knows things that I don’t. For instance, I’ve recently started catching myself thinking of “our” things as “your” things:

Your car.

Your house.

Your bed.

Your ugly kitchen table.

Your life.

Your life after me, of course I mean. What will that be like, I wonder? My life always felt so rushed: I dashed to work, I hurried home, I raced to the store, I ran to the bus, I worried about missing the train, the dinner, the movie. Why? Why did I do that? Why was I worried? My whole life I’ve had plenty of Life left to live, but I spent it all driving a million miles an hour to a million different places - only to get there and be worried about what I was doing next. Onward! Onward! Missing out always felt like a fate worse than death. How wrong I was.

Now that my life is ending, and there’s an actual clock counting down, I couldn’t care less. I don’t rush anywhere. I don’t race to any event. I don’t worry about making the movie or missing the bus. There will be other movies, other buses. Now that my future has fled, what’s most important is what’s around me, right now. It’s only at the end of my life that I’m realizing that life really takes place in between the times we think will matter; the moments I didn’t pay attention to were the ones that mattered most. Turns out the real beauty in life was there just underneath the surface after all.

They say those who fail to learn from their mistakes are doomed to repeat them - but that’s wrong. No one gets to repeat anything. We should be so lucky to given such a chance; mistakes or not.

***

My first thought is that I am freezing cold. Why am I so cold? And why is everything in my bedroom orange? I look around, and it takes me a second to realize that I’m not in my bedroom. I’m outside. What am I doing outside at night? The orange glow from the streetlight throws wild, unfamiliar shadows on the trees by the side of the road. What is this? I hear you screaming my name from somewhere far away. As if in response, the icy winter wind gusts out from between the black trunks of the barren pines, pushing me in your direction. I turn, my legs stiff, and begin walking towards where I think you are, but it’s cold and -

I wake suddenly in our (your) bed. It’s morning. I look around, slowly. The terror of the bad dream slowly drains out of my chest in the white glow of the morning. I look over; you’re still asleep. I desperately have to pee - a side effect of the medication - so I slowly pull the covers back and roll to the side to get out of bed without waking you. As I put my feet on the floor, I notice they are bloody and scratched; black with dirt. Not a dream after all.

***

One night, I call my mother for our weekly catch up - but her phone keeps ringing and ringing. This never, ever happens. She always picks up. Concerned, I find you in the living room half watching the TV while doing your crossword.

I’m worried about my mom. I say. I think she’s in trouble. Maybe hurt.

You look up, sharply. Hurt? What do you mean?

I just tried to call her. It just keeps ringing and ringing. Should we call someone to check on her?

Your face changes. I can tell you don’t want to do this, that it hurts you to do this, but it’s something you feel that you need to do. You pause, then carefully put your crossword aside.

I think your mom is okay. Come here for a second.

You stand, and I follow you into the kitchen. There is a piece of paper taped to the wall next to the phone that I’ve never seen before. It is written in all caps with a big black marker and says:

CALLING YOUR MOM?

LOOK AT THE CLOCK.

IS IT AFTER 8PM? ------> YOU HAVE ALREADY CALLED HER TONIGHT.

IF YOU HAVE ALREADY CALLED, SHE WILL NOT ANSWER.

DON’T WORRY, SHE IS FINE.

You look at me, and at the clock. My eyes follow yours. The clock reads 8:34. I slowly nod. As I put the phone back on its cradle, I read the note again. It’s in my handwriting.

***

Even as I’m pouring the last drops of our second pot of coffee in your cup I’m still trying to tell myself that I’m not going to make another pot, but even my own mind can’t keep a straight face at the thought. I decide to pretend a third pot was the plan all along and pour the water in for another go before bringing your coffee back to the table and setting it down with a little flourish.

You sit as you do, as we do, every morning, at our kitchen table. It’s a heavy old thing slathered with cheap white paint. It must weigh a million pounds. I secretly suspect (read: hope) it’s actually something beautiful underneath; walnut, maybe. Or teak. The wood of royals! Something exotic - wouldn’t that be a trip? These past weeks it’s been all I can do to not give in to the thought and scratch a little bit off with the butter knife to take a peek. What if it’s something valuable? Like really majestic? Hidden under all that hideous thick paint uncaringly slopped on. The more I think about it, the more positive I am: Someone, at some point in history, decided to cover this regal, majestic table in terrible thick white paint. But did that change what the table was, underneath? It changed the way we (I) looked at our (your) table, but didn’t change what the table was, inside. What an epic crime it would be if the table believed that it was just this white coated monstrosity. That it forgot what it truly was, underneath the thick paint. Does it still count as something beautiful? Even if I’m the only one who knows it?

Not wanting time to push me forward into the next few minutes and the confession I have to make, I look down and watch my fingers trace the raised patterns of thick paint on the table. My life, this life, here with you - the whole thing almost feels like too much to wish for.

I watch as you gaze out the window, trying to burn it into my memory. “Remember this, Stephanie.” I think. “Remember, remember, remember.”

***

It can be hard to see yourself as you really are. To try and see the truth of someone else? Nearly impossible.

So years ago, I came up with a neat little trick: whenever I would a take photo, I did something sneaky: I would count to three, and then pretend to take the photo. Everyone would smile. Then, believing it was done, they would relax - and that’s when I would really take the photo, capturing everyone in that one unguarded moment. We are really only our true selves when we believe no one is watching. Those moments that are in-between; those are only real moments that matter.

***

I am outside, in the darkness. No orange light, now. On all sides, I am surrounded by branches that claw at me with their long, sharp fingers. No matter which way I turn, they are there, raking their nails across my cold, tender skin. When I was younger I used to live in a hole with a kid named Phillip - not Phil, but Phillip - and every Christmas morning, Phillip would hide under his bed, hysterical, refusing to come downstairs and open his presents. He thought that Santa Claus was a giant bearded fat man in a red suit with long, sharp claws who would crawl down the chimney into the house while you were sleeping. We would sit in our hole, in the dark, and Phillip would tell me in a high whisper about Santa: That he could see deep into your soul with his ancient watery yellow eyes and knew in your heart how you felt - if you had acted bad. If you had darkness in you. It petrified Phillip. Silly Phillip, I think, as I stagger through the cold forest in the dark, the branches scratching my arms and face. The bearded man only wanted to bring you his gifts. The bearded man. With the claws. He would crawl down the chimney while we were sleeping, he would slither into our heads with his long claws and wrap himself around our hearts, knowing how we truly felt. Click click click his claws tapping against the old wooden floors in our house in the night, scratching and scurrying over to the plate of treats we had left out for him; an offering to the long clawed greasy red shadow that came every year in the night. Traveling on the night air, high up in the black sky, soaring on the sharp cold winds that roar right at the edge of space across the slumbering world, the only witness to his flight the endless flickering points of pale flame, flickering white stars long dead, like the countless white grubs in the steaming fresh earth of endless turned spades, that one hot sticky summer we spent digging our hole. Phillip died not long after we filled in our hole; died that winter, his blood leaking out into the bright white snow. His dad put him in a different hole, down in that cold dark earth where everything is alive and nothing lives. Phillip, not Phil.

A sudden winter wind knifes through the dark woods, scattering a small flurry of snow and bringing a gasp to my lips. There is rot in these woods, I think, suddenly afraid. It feels like something is watching as I stumble around; something ancient and hircine, watching with watery yellow eyes, crouched somewhere I can’t see. A low sob escapes my chest. I don’t want this. Please. Long brittle fingers eagerly scrape against each other, somewhere high above against the black night sky. It’s cold. So cold. Off in the distance, a faint voice screams for Stephanie. Who is Stephanie?

***

It’s morning.

I am sitting in your kitchen, at your table, as you set a cup of coffee down in front of me with a little flourish. It’s cute. Our first date, and already the consummate host! You will make some woman very happy one day, I think. Knock wood that it would be me. It would be nice to sit here with you, morning after morning, day after day, and have this sort of life together. My younger self would recoil at the thought - me? A happily married woman? Content with starting my every day off like this with you - I can just picture my younger self screaming bloody murder. I laugh at the thought. Us, every morning, like this, at this table? A dream. Almost too much to wish for.

Although, this table… It is hideous. Who would paint such a beautiful table with this cheap white paint? A shame. A crime. It has the look of such a pretty, ornate table; you can nearly see the beauty, just underneath the surface. But in your home, this ugly table stands alone - the rest of your house has the look of a woman’s touch. Tastefully decorated, but lovingly lived in. I wonder who you used to live here with. How it ended. Did she break your heart?

My eyes wander back to the table. I wonder what really is underneath? I can’t stop thinking about it.

When I was young, my neighbor and I spent the summer digging a hole. To everyone else, it was two weird kids digging a weird hole. But we did it because we had a crush on each other and didn’t know how to say it. So, instead, we spent every day together, digging - it was as good a reason as any to be in one another’s company and not have to awkwardly talk about it. When the hole got deep enough, we would sit in our hole, our special place under the tarp, and make up stories about the things we were going to find; buried treasure, magical pottery; old robot parts. One day, when I was in the middle of a story about a bank robbery and how the gang had no choice but to bury their loot and split up before they were captured, he leaned over and kissed me. It was my first kiss; a small moment in the middle of an unbearably hot, sticky Midwestern Summer under a tarp in a big wet hole next to a house - but I wouldn’t have traded it for anything. I kissed him back.

There are few things more true in this world than the beauty of a small moment.

When you’re not looking, I take your butter knife and scrape some of the paint at the edge of the table. The wood underneath is dark. Excited, I try to press into it with my thumbnail. It’s hard! Teak, I’ll bet! I love teak. How beautiful! I smile to myself. A teak table painted birdshit white. Who knew? The wood of the royals, right here under all this cheap paint. A thing of beauty, just waiting its turn to be rediscovered and once again have its moment in the sun.

I look over to see you watching me, smiling with your big wide eyes. Did you see me scratch your table? I smile back. What a beautiful smile you have - and I tell you so. It’s flirting, shameless; I know. But what do I have to lose? A handsome man like you, single? Inviting me here, into your home? Making me a morning coffee, of all things? Almost too much to wish for.

You ask if I’m hungry; I’m not, but I want to stay with you here in your house for as long as I can, so I say yes. An obvious trick. You laugh and pull out a pan to make some food. It’s quite the production; you drizzle oil into the pan like a ballet dancer; you crack the eggs like a ninja; you drop the salt and it spills all over the floor. I love it. I love it all. I am laughing hysterically, in spite of myself.

I look out the window: The trees, the world, the sky, the stars; all trapped behind one single pane of glass. All of it just a spectator to you and me and this moment - this one, lovely moment. How can I be so lucky, I think, to live a life that would have just a single moment like this. How lucky to be alive at all. So many years I lived rushing from place to place, right by moments like this, instead of living in moments like this. Youth is wasted on the young.

You look up from the sizzling pan. Ugh, that smile again. Lord. I can’t. My heart beats faster. Do I have a really have a shot with this man? This wonderful man, as I sit at his ugly royal teak table in his beautiful house? Expertly assembling my breakfast on a plate, you glide over with a little dance, and set the plate down. Suddenly, I’m starving. Pulling your chair close, you sit next to me, our bodies almost touching. It is sublime.

You run your finger over the edge of the table, over the small scratch I’ve made in the paint. I didn’t notice before, but I see now that it’s next to countless other small scratches made by someone else. Sadness flickers across your face, and you look up. Our eyes meet.

It's teak! I can't help but exclaim. The wood of royals!

You break into a laugh.

What a perfect moment, I think. Time pushes us forward - but please, just this once, let it wait. Let me live right here for just a moment more: in our house, at our table. Here, with you. Silence settles around us like a warm blanket. The clock ticks quietly in the hall.

I look out the window. The trees, the world, the sky, the stars; all is still.

What a sight, I say.

And then you lean in for a kiss.

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