marabaker

[marabaker]

Vote based on your local government's regulations/recommendations. For example, if your tap water meets the legal requirements for safe drinking water but tastes funny so you filter it before drinking, you would select option 4: "It is SAFE, but it tastes/smells/looks off; I DON'T drink it as-is."

Examples of an off taste could include tasting like metal or chlorine; an off look could include visible particulates or a yellow tint.

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We ask your questions anonymously so you don’t have to! Submissions are open on the 1st and 15th of the month.

[marabaker]

reblog this and tag with a food you no longer have access to (closed restaurant, state you moved away from, ex’s mom’s cooking, etc) that will haunt you until your dying day, mine are the spicy chicken sandwich on the employee menu at the fine dining restaurant I was a prep cook at, and the onion bagel from the kosher place down the street from my house when I lived in the city

[marabaker]

Name ten female characters you like, you get zapped if it’s jsut a male character you call a babygirl or other feminine nicknames because I can’t see people calling Lestat coquette again

[marabaker]

The end of the affair, Dorothée Dottke

[marabaker]

okay everyone reblog and tell me your favorite perfume. but if your favorite is glossier you… don’t bother

[marabaker]

It had been blisteringly cold in Cripple Creek for nearly a week, so cold that David felt his eyelashes freezing together when he made his way to the store in the morning. Paddy had told him that if it kept up this way for another day or two he could just stay home - he believed half of the town would’ve frozen to death anyway, by then. No sense coming in if nobody was going to buy anything. But mercifully, by Valentine's Day, the cold snap had broken, and though it was still mighty cold, David could walk out the front door without having the wind knocked out of him. It was still cold enough in the store to keep his gloves on. Paddy was crouched by the fire, squatting on his heels and shaking his head. "Never been this damn cold here for this damn long, Davey. I'll tell you the birdies are frozen to the branches." That was a grim image, and probably a true one. Poor little birds, stuck fast to trees, flapping their wings to no end. David took a sip of much too hot coffee, burning his pipes all the way down to his belly, before flipping the front door sign to "open." Robert Dawes came in almost immediately, looking pink and crazed. "Mister Dawes!" Paddy said, finally standing up (his knees popped and groaned.) David stood up straight, ready to take his order. Robert Dawes was one of the wealthier men in the county, and though the rumor was he'd gotten his money through claim-jumping, Paddy had always said it was no business of theirs. He was a paying customer, that was that. "Good morning to you, Mister Dawes," Paddy greeted him, taking a place besides David at the counter. "Suppose you made it through this cold snap, t-" "No time for it, Catlick, may God bless you. I need some things." "Of course." "Have your boy-" David had never been addressed by Robert Dawes directly. "-fetch me a length of rope, a hammer, and a hatchet." David, puzzled, began collecting the items without a word. "-and an apple."

David took a moment, and grabbed the shiniest apple they had, about the size of his fist. He placed it on the counter in front of Robert Dawes, looking him right in the eye. Robert Dawes looked right back at him. David could see white around his entire pupil. "What drives you to need all these in such a fuss, Mister Dawes?" Robert Dawes's eyes whipped back to Paddy, and he smiled. Since the last time David had seen him a few weeks ago, he was newly missing a front tooth. "I've a madman after me, if you must know the why of it." He let this hang there for a while. "A madman?" "A madman, Paddy, mad as a dog. It's this cold drove him to it." "But why after you, especially? Who is he?" "Peter Sullivan. Headed west from Baltimore in '49, got stuck here. Worked for me a spell. Thinks I owe him money. He spent a year out there in the woods and now he's plum crazy. This here cold brought him back in. Thought he'd get my goat, take my home, stay warm. Hah!" David jumped at this theatrical laugh. "He crept into my house like a thief on cat-paws. Took my kettle and whacked me across the chops, a man in bed! Leave it to a cowardly bastard like him. I got him good, knocked him off his feet, socked him in the eye. I hollered 'Out with the vagrant! Out with the no good sinner!' and threw his hinders out into the snow. Sure enough, next day, there he was again. Told me 'Robert Dawes, I shall have my avenge on you!' Durn fool doesn't know what he's saying. I said 'You mean revenge, you ignorant son of a gun!' And he said 'Any word for it suits me fine!' and came at me with fury. Well thisa time he knocked my tooth out -" He pointed to the gaping hole, as if David and Paddy hadn't already noticed it. "-and that got me steaming mad. We tussled a bit, I got a few good knocks in, and threw him out in the snow again. Told him if I saw him again I'd send him to the arms of the Lord. Or to Beelzebub. Whoever he's made his peace with."

[marabaker]

James was sound of mind and sound of body. He did not drink. He allowed himself caffeinated tea only on mornings when he had to work. He ate no sweets (allowing only for those his sister made for her endless-seeming parties.) He ate only what he deemed would provide him with the sustenance he needed to live and give him a healthy weight for his work. He went to bed promptly at nine. He woke up promptly at five. He combed his hair and kept his rooms (two) very neat. In this way, he was free of any possible distraction. In this way, he was saved. James lived in his two rooms on his mother's sprawling estate. His sister lived at the northern end, in their childhood home, which she had done a very good job maintaining, save for the few modern additions she had integrated. James was not especially enamored of the fountains or the electric lights but it was his sister's house, now, and these things seemed to make her happy. Her and her four children. Peter, Timothy, Geoffrey, and Helen. All of them blonde, like her. All of them sweet and smart and entirely fascinated with their uncle. All of them given to sneaking down to the southern end of the estate to catch a glimpse of him, all of them thrilled when he caught them with a "Hah!" which would send them giggling and shrieking away. James would never say it out loud but he adored these children. He had been no great admirer of their father, dead some six-odd years from an accident at sea, right before the youngest was born. His sister seemed to have borne the tragedy with a sort of indifferent grace, and hosted parties and priests and the visiting gentry right on as if she were still married to The Admiral. He had owned some land or another, some land James had never seen, that would now go to Peter whenever he was old enough for it. For now, it sat empty and alone in some corner of the country, and James would think about it often. Fields growing untamed. What must it look like? It was the land James thought about when he carved. Rabbits and badgers and frogs and pheasants, running amok. He would imagine a rabbit nibbling away, paws to its mouth as it sat upright, or perhaps wiggling its little nose as it watched some movement in the grass, and he would carve the rabbit he saw into the foot of a cradle, which would forever rock in the glen he carved.

[marabaker]

book to movie adaptations generally suck, but reblog with ur exception in the tags

[marabaker]

Freddie made her way into the cafeteria, realizing that she finally didn’t feel sluggish or so sleep-deprived as to be nauseated. She was still much later than the usual crowd, though - there were only a a few quiet people in the room, none of them sitting together.

She picked a few things with little thought, letting them slide around on her tray. Even if she wasn’t nauseated, she still didn’t have much of an appetite. Maybe she’d try to get a scale next time she was shopping. She felt like she must have lost at least ten pounds in the past few months.

Glancing around the room, she saw faces she recognized only a little, or not at all. Closest to her sat one of the trip managers - Rick? Rich? - absorbed in a magazine. Kevin had mentioned he was a nice guy, that he’d introduce them someday. With a pang of regret, she approached the table.

“Hi, is it...Rich?” she said, guessing. “I’m Freddie, I’m-”

“In the eighties cohort,” he said, smiling. “I’ve seen you a lot, I’ve just always been behind the glass. Nice to meet ya.”

Freddie smiled back at him. She wasn’t sure what it was - Rich was pudgy, a little balding, not especially attractive - but she liked him immediately. He had a warmth about him. “May I join you?”

“By all means,” he said, gesturing to the empty chair across from him, “You do the apres ski party right?”

Freddie nodded, and began picking a sticker off of her orange. “Yeah, I’ve been leading that tour for...gosh, I guess three years now. Three in August.”

“You’re due for a change soon,” he said. “Anything you’ve got in mind?”

“I haven’t given it a lot of thought, to be totally honest. I’ve been having more and more trouble recovering from tours lately. I was throwing up all day a few days ago. This will be the first thing I’ve eaten since then.”

She wasn’t normally this candid, but somehow she felt like she knew Rich. Like they’d been friends for a long time.

“Then you’re definitely due for a change. We’ve got a couple of fun ones that will need hosts soon. The Berlin Wall. An arcade.”

Freddie peeled the sticker off of the orange and rubbed a finger on the still-sticky spot it left. “The Berlin Wall could be fun. I guess I wouldn’t mind trying a different decade, though.”

Rich nodded, and flipped the magazine around to face her. He tapped on a black and white picture, “Sam Spade,” he said. “We’ve got a group trying to figure out a noir tour of the 1940′s. I dunno how the hell they’re going to manage it but it’d be a helluva lot of fun. What did you study?”

“Mostly the post World War Two period-”

“Oh, well perfect!”

“-but like, the atomic age I mean. Pop culture from then. The early years of the Cold War. Atomic tests, ‘duck and cover,’ that sort of thing.”

[marabaker]

first 5 faceless emojis are how your summers gonna go

[marabaker]

Lindsey was happy to wake up at home the first morning. By day two it had already lost its luster, and by day three she realized with grim finality that she was here, at home, with her mom and dad, for the long haul. 

The sounds of her old neighborhood were different than she remembered. Had they always been able to hear the trucks on the highway? Had there always been so many dogs barking throughout the night? And then, in the few hours before dawn, had it always been so quiet? She was so used to the constant but predictable din of Austin, the suburbs were a new exercise in contrasts. In any case, she had plenty of time to study the audioscape of her old home - she could barely sleep.

On day three, she slept in past nine for the first time. She woke up in a panic, part of her saying that she had nothing to do, no obligation, but the other (louder) part saying that her parents would be judgemental of her sleeping in a moment past eight thirty. She was unemployed and back home, she needed to stave off all of the judgement she possibly could.

She gave each side of her mouth a fleeting brush of toothpaste before coming downstairs, apologizing to her mom, who was finishing the dishes.

“Oh, sweetheart, no need to apologize,” she said, brushing aside a lock of hair with her forearm. “You probably needed as much sleep as you could get.”

Lindsey couldn’t argue with that. She poured herself a coffee and studied her mom as she washed the last pan in the sink. She looked thinner. “Well, I...I feel like I ought to start the day early, y’know. Set a tone.”

Her mom smiled and shook her head. “You’ve only been here a couple days. You should relax a little. Take this as a vacation.”

That was exactly what Lindsey had told her friend Georgia before she’d left Austin. “It’ll be like a vacation. Then I’ll get my shit together, find a better job, and be back so quick it’ll be like I was never gone.”

In telling someone else, she hoped she could magically make it all true.

“There’s breakfast for you in the oven,” her mom said, putting the last pan on the drying rack.

“Mom, you didn’t have to make me breakfast.”

“Get real. You think I’m not going to make breakfast for you? You don’t need to feel guilty being here. You’re back home. Try to embrace that.”

Lindsey pulled a plate with tented foil out of the warm oven. Her mom had never been a great cook, but she had always put in a lot of effort. Lindsey peeled back the foil to see scrambled eggs and sausage. At least she hadn’t gone too out of her way.

“There’s strawberries in the fridge,” her mom said, pulling the refrigerator door open before Lindsey could even respond. “Sit, sit down.”

Lindsey did as she was told, and perched on the barstool by the counter. The same place she’d always had breakfast. God, what a weird sensation.

“Are you going to see anyone while you’re here? Anyone you still talk to?”

Lindsey absently picked up a sausage while she considered this question. She hadn’t given it a lot of thought. “I guess there’s a couple people I’d go see. Ben...you remember Ben? Maybe you never met him. Katie. I guess that’s it. Everybody else...” Lindsey lifted a shoulder. The moment she left Greensborough, she made every effort to cleave her high school life from her post-high school life.

“What about, um...Cassie? Cass? I had always liked her.”

Yikes. “Cass got knocked up right after high school,” she said, causing her mother to wince. “Not that I wouldn’t see her cause of that, it’s just. I dunno how much we have in common anymore. We haven’t spoken in years and years.”

Her mother took a loud sip of coffee. “Well, you should see one or two at least. We’re social animals.”

Lindsey didn’t respond. She chewed. She wasn’t even sure if she wanted to see the two people she had mentioned. She had been such an unhappy person in high school and had tried to move on from the thoughts and feelings and drama that had sapped so much of her teenage energy. Seeing people from the old days felt like regression.

Her mother squeezed her shoulder and left the kitchen, giving Lindsey a quick “Gladyou’reback” before going out to the backyard. Lindsey played with her eggs as she considered how to approach seeing Katie again, and for god’s sake, Ben. She’d made no announcement on social media that she was back home, and had only quietly removed her job title from her profile. But maybe it’d be nice to grab a drink with Ben, see what he was up to. For as quiet as Lindsey was on social media, Ben was a ghost. And Katie, who had been so kind and so removed from the stupid bullshit of high school. Lindsey hadn’t gotten very close to her, but had certainly grown to appreciate her level-headedness after moving away had given her some space to reflect.

She’d start with Ben. There was a depth of their relationship that seemed easier to plumb. Easier to slip back into the old world.

She texted him before showering, and found herself surprised at how disappointed she was that he hadn’t responded by the time she got out. She puttered around the house, helping her dad with a little gardening and flipping through her mother’s old books. She considered going through her moving boxes and purging the things she didn’t need, but that task seemed Herculean this early in her time back home. That could be a punishment if she hadn’t found a job in a couple of weeks’ time. Motivation.

The hours crept by as she checked her texts every few minutes, hoping something from Ben had come in. She took Goose on a walk (much more slow than the last time she’d walked him five years prior) and tried to remember the names of kids she had played with in the neighborhood. She stopped by the house where she’d be introduced to the concept of weed, before making her way to the house where she’d broken her wrist on a slip ‘n slide.

[marabaker]

Lucius had a roaring headache, one that felt different than those that would come on when he’d drunk too much wine. With it came a certain clarity, a realization that he hated the man he’d become in the past three years, and was more than ready to leave it behind. Back home to Rome? Nothing could sound sweeter. Nothing could provide him with more relief, a chance to shed the vile stench of three years abroad and the wicked acts he’d participated in and been privy to.

His contubernia had been shedding members the closer to Rome they’d gotten. A man wanted to stay at a brothel here, or visit his cousin there, or simply claim a bit of unworked land and leave soldiery behind him. Lucius of course wanted to see his sister and his nephew and encourage him to do anything, anything at all, other than to join the armies of Caesar, to pillage the lands of the Gauls and the Celts and whatever other barbarians lay to the north. He was three days from home. The cypress trees were neat and orderly along the road. Someone had planted them. Someone had cared. Rome was near.

Lucius was five days on the road with him and Bacchus only, and it had been a quiet five days. They were both headed to Rome and both liked each other, it seemed natural to stay together. Rumors of bandits on the roads bothered them only a little. It was, more than anything else, that they had been in the company of hundreds of other men for three years. Being alone was a frightening proposition. Neither of them said it, but both of them knew it. Better to stay together. Better to fight off the bandits and the fear of the dark and the shock of being back in familiar territory together, rather than separately.

But a day outside of Rome, Bacchus acted strange in the morning. It was a beautiful, warm morning, dewy and bright. It would be a hot day, but for now, the hills glimmered green, almost too green to look at. Lucius was ready for a brisk day of travel, where food would be easy to come by. There would probably be merchants on the road, too, this close to the city. It’d be a nice welcome, and just one or two more days left to finally get back home. It was exciting. For Lucius, anyway. Bacchus tended to the fire too much, avoiding looking at Lucius as he packed away his tent and placed his belongings on his horse.

Lucius felt he needed to break the silence, else they’d be quiet all day. “What’s on your mind?” he said. “Prophetic dreams?”

Bacchus chuckled emptily, and looked up at Lucius. “I hate to say it, but,” he said, and kicked a rock into the smoking fire pit. “I think I need to leave, brother.”

Lucius was not entirely surprised. “I thought you were coming into the city? For that woman, that, uh...Marcia?”

Bacchus shook his head, and gazed down the hillside. “She’s certainly married already. No, it’s rather, ah. I think there’s trouble ahead,” Bacchus said, and looked back, squinting in the already bright sun.

Lucius stared back for a moment. “What trouble do you mean?”

“Lucius, you know that Caesar intends...well, you know. Don’t you?”

Lucius hesitated, then lifted a shoulder.

“He intends to overthrow the Senate. They’re already antsy, Cicero is threatening to exile him.”

Lucius looked over the hillside himself, now. He hated to confess it, but he felt stupid when topics like this came up. He didn’t know anything about them, or certainly not nearly as much as other men seemed to. “So long as I have a roof over my head and my sister can afford bread, that’s all that matters to me.”

Bacchus exhaled in laughter. “Well. All right, Lucius, but I believe there’s war on our doorstep. Caesar got a taste of it in Gaul, now he wants to bring it home.”

“So you’re not going to Rome, then?”

Bacchus shook his head. “I’ve an uncle with a farm north of here. I’m going to see him, hope to make myself useful to him. I’m close to the city, but...” he sighed, folding his arms. “Hopefully it’s far enough away to avoid bloodshed.”

A pit settled in Lucius’s stomach. “You really think it’ll be war?”

Bacchus nodded.

They left it at that. Both men packed their belongings and readied their horses in silence. They made their way a few miles down the road before reaching a fork. Bacchus nodded towards the path which branched north.

“This is where I leave you.”

Lucius hopped off his horse. “Well. I wish you all of the blessings that are due to you, Bacchus. Honestly I do.”

Bacchus hesitated, then climbed down from his horse as well. He grabbed Lucius by the shoulder and pulled him into an embrace. “I’ll see you again. If Marcia’s not married, you’ve my permission to - well, mount her like a horse!”

Both men laughed, both not feeling especially mirthful. They climbed back onto their horses, nodded at each other, and went their separate ways.

Lucius was completely alone for the first time in three years.

He slowed his horse to an easy trot, taking in the scenery around him. Rome was beautiful, much more beautiful than Gaul, with its thickets of trees and branches that caught moss. Gaul felt dirty and untouched by man. Rome was groomed, well loved. The hills were manicured, the houses that dotted the landscape were sweet and pretty. They weren’t the tumbledown shacks the barbarians somehow made homes of. Lucius didn’t believe war could touch this land, not really. War belonged in places like Gaul, where men could become uncivilized simply from the conditions surrounding them. Here, men were too used to wine and art and music. They were too learned to participate in war. They wouldn’t stand for it.

He came to a bridge that straddled a gurgling steam.

[marabaker]

Amy would listen to her daughter plucking out notes on the piano and, each time, be transported back to the days when she did the same, in her grandparents’ drafty farmhouse. The first few notes were cautious, as she re-learned what it meant to look at the little black dots on the page and translate them to the white and black keys. Then, she’d find her pace, and begin playing recognizable tunes. She’d do this for a while before making her first mistake, which was always followed by a prolonged silence. It was in this silence Amy felt some anguish, as that silence is what stopped her back in her days. She was heartened, then, whenever little Sophie would come back, plucking the same notes (perhaps a little more quietly) and pushing past the mistake, off to make a new one.

Sophie had something resilient that Amy had lacked (and thank God for it.) Mistakes used to stop Amy completely, leave her unable to even think about continuing, let alone actually managing to do so. Whatever had happened in the womb or in childhood or in some space between them hadn’t happened to Sophie. Amy was terrified that she’d inspire it someday. Take the same seed of doubt that had flourished within her and imbue it in her niece. She’d managed to avoid it so far but the darkest parts of Amy knew it was just a matter of time. Knew it was only so long before she’d say something flip and stop Sophie’s growth in its tracks. It was always just around the corner.

It was a cold Sunday morning, and Sophie was coming up on a year and a half without her parents. Amy didn’t point out the anniversary and didn’t know whether Sophie realized it had come and gone or not (though how could she not?) and now six months had passed since, with neither of them saying a word about it, perhaps in fear that they’d disturb the other. They carried on with a solemn dignity, and Amy was frankly amazed that a six...no, seven year old could display such grace and sobriety.

It was a cold Sunday, and Amy’s friend Nora was coming by later with her son, a little younger than Sophie. He was sweet and had Coke-bottle glasses that made his eyes seem impossibly big, and both Sophie and Amy loved him. Sophie would light up - really light up - only when he was around. Whatever it took.

Amy hoisted herself off the couch to pour new coffee, and considered asking Sophie if she were ready for lunch. It seemed too important that she stick with the piano. Some common knowledge that had stuck in Amy’s brain but which she was never able to source said that everyone, especially someone with a great deal of grief, needed a hobby. Something outside of work (or in Sophie’s case, school) to keep the synapses firing. She poured herself coffee as a sudden thought popped into her head, clear as day - 

“So...what’s YOUR hobby?”

Well, raising Sophie, she replied to herself, a little huffy. But that answer was kind of lame, and both she and the hypothetical question-asker knew it. That had always been such a topic of cultural discussion, right? Whether mothers could have lives outside of their families? Well, for as much as Amy felt nothing at all like a mother, she felt she owed it to Sophie to present herself as a fully-rounded woman. A job, a home, an accidental daughter, and some outside interests, for God’s sake.

As Sophie played an impressively recognizable Greensleeves, Amy stared down at her mug. She had used to ski - what, seven? Eight years ago? She had picked up pottery and had dropped it quickly. She’d done that with a lot of hobbies, to be frank. What she had really liked, still found herself swooning over, was classic cinema, but that wasn’t really a hobby, was it? Not if you just passively consumed movies, and then tucked yourself into bed, that being the extent of your engagement with what you’ve just watched.

The music had stopped for a few moments.

Amy shook herself out of her navel-gazing and wandered into the living room. Sophie was frowning at her sheet music, having pulled it onto her lap. Amy approached, and cleared her throat to announce her entrance into the room.

“What’s the matter?”

Sophie looked up, then back down. “Um. I don’t, um,” she struggled, and then pointed to a symbol on the paper. “What’s that?”

Amy took the sheet and squinted at what Sophie had pointed at. It was a squiggly line next to a chord. Amy frowned before handing the paper back to Sophie. “I don’t know, Soph. Sorry. We could look it up?”

Sophie sighed and put the paper back on the stand. “That’s okay. I think I’ll stop for now anyway.”

“Would you like some lunch?”

“Okay,” Sophie said, and began towards the kitchen. “When are Nora and Simon coming over?”

“At about five. Nora and I will make dinner and then we can all eat together.”

Sophie clambered into a chair by the kitchen counter. For all of her dignity in handling the death of her parents, she was still all kid when it came to her movements. “Can Simon and I watch that movie I got for Christmas?”

“Of course.”

Sophie nodded, and looked out the window. It was a gray, still day. The light barely penetrated the clouds, giving the world a very melancholy look.

“There’s someone in the backyard.”

Amy’s stomach flipped, and she looked out the window. Sure enough, there was a man out there, hands on hips, peering at the hedge that separated Amy’s property from the one behind it. Amy had seen him around the neighborhood, but couldn’t place who he was. She closed the refrigerator door and grabbed her coat off of the hook on the back door. “Sophie, stay right here,” she said, and walked outside.

It was beastly cold, colder than she had expected. She thought the slamming of the back door might grab the man’s attention but he continued to look at the hedges, having folded his arms.

She stopped a few dozen yards short of him. Feeling lame, she just managed to shout, “Hi!”

[marabaker]

She couldn’t concentrate on even the simplest tasks. Prepping newcomers for their first experience was suddenly difficult and inscrutable. Wasn’t it all so silly? “Don’t talk to anyone about pop culture. Not even something you think is of its era. You’re probably wrong. Before you know it you make a reference to Bill Clinton and it’s all shot to hell.” Wasn’t it all so silly? Shouldn’t we let people live out their little fantasies? What difference did it make?

She was a terrible host, those first few weeks after Alex said he loved her. Constantly distracted, almost losing track of the clients. She’d let them go off for minutes at a time without supervision, saying god only knew what. Probably making reference to 9/11 or Avatar or something equally stupid. 

[marabaker]

Alex slept in late the next morning, deep and dreamless. She never got very good sleep at home - whether the altitude or the strange new unfamiliarity of her own childhood home or just the dogs whining at the door, she would toss and turn all night and not fall asleep until four or five AM, just in time to get a few hours’ worth of sleep before her parents were up and about.

She finally awoke with a feeling that it was probably very close to the afternoon. She fumbled for her clock and saw with some relief that it was ten AM. Still much later than when people normally woke up at the base, but at least it could technically be considered “morning.” Blinking the sleep out of her eyes, she pulled on a pair of shorts and stumbled down the windowless hallway to the kitchen, realizing distantly that she was able to wander around the hallways of the place of her employment more easily than the home where she’d grown up.

The kitchen was quiet, just a few people reading and chatting. She made her way to the coffee machine and, still not entirely awake, recognized Joel staring at her from one of the tables.

“Hi,” she said, voice froggy. God, how embarrassing. “I uh...slept in.”

“I’ll say,” he said, smiling. “How was your family? You were in...Utah?”

“Colorado.”

“Colorado, yeah. How was it?”

Alex lifted a shoulder while the coffee maker began whistling to life. “It’s always fine. Y’know. My parents are a little older every time I see them. I’ve got a little less in common with my friends there. But it’s always nice,” she frowned, and shook her head. “Sorry, I don’t mean to sound so negative. It’s nice. I get along real well with my family.”

Joel smiled and nodded, though Alex could see a small knitting of his brow. “Well, th-that’s good. I take it you didn’t do a whole lot?”

Alex chewed on the inside of her cheek, only just now realizing how boring her trips back home always were. “Not really much, no. My dad and I like to go hiking. Watch old movies with my parents. Got a couple drinks with some people I knew. Pretty uneventful I guess.”

The coffee maker dinged, and Alex busied herself with her drink, grateful to have something to do. She and Joel had never spoken this much, at least not one-on-one. It felt strange, first thing since waking up.

“I’m glad to hear you had a good time, anyway. Hopefully you get to take a more exciting trip next year.”

“Heh, yeah,” she said, turning back around. Joel wasn’t wearing his glasses, she noticed. “Cancun or something.”

[marabaker]

it was unbearably hot, even at that late hour. He hadn’t slept at all, and had been sitting up in bed looking at his phone since she had climbed into bed. She was sleeping fitfully, herself. Her skin was slick with sweat, and she had kicked the covers off more than an hour ago. He regarded her for a few moments, before a sickly weight settled in his stomach. He got out of bed quickly, and found himself in their living room.

It was strange to see it at - jeez, was it already three AM? It felt sinister, almost. Like something was lurking in the corner, ready to attack. He wandered around, back of his neck prickling. He didn’t want to look at his phone anymore. There was nothing new to look at, anyway. He stared at their bookshelf, finally really seeing it again for the first time in months. There, sticking out as a bright white beacon, was their wedding album.

He stared at it for a moment before gingerly picking it up off the shelf. He sat at their dining room table, and began flipping through it. There was Amy, getting ready. Beautiful, just like she was still beautiful now. There was Banjo, looking older than he had remembered. And there he was, in his uncomfortable suit. The photographer hadn’t captured it, but he had just downed a swig of whiskey with Todd. Whether it was celebratory or a tincture to soothe his nerves, he had never decided.

He flipped through the pictures, reminiscing, looking at friends and family they hadn’t spoken with in years. A few, not since the day of the wedding. Hell, a few not even on the day of the wedding. More and more photos of Amy, and as he looked at her, studied her face, he realized something he guessed he’d known for more than a year now.

He felt nothing. Nothing at all.

He had been in love with Amy at one time, genuinely. He had felt passionate and yearned and appreciated little things about her, her quirks. Just like you were supposed to when you were in love. But now, three years later...nothing. He didn’t hate her. It was just - he didn’t love her anymore.

He realized he was crying.

He snapped the heavy book shut, louder than he’d meant it to be. God. The sickly feeling had settled in deep, into his bones. What was he supposed to do, now? Tell her? He envisioned trying to have that conversation, and couldn’t even come up with the first word to begin. 

[marabaker]

While the wheel is spinning

spinning

spinning

I’ll not dream of winning

forture

or even fame

While the wheel is turning

turning

turning

I’ll be yearning yearning

For love’s precious flame!

The nights were beginning to scare her so much, she’d begin panicking just as the sun was finally dipping behind the mountains. They wouldn’t come for hours yet, but it felt to her like the fall of night was a cloak of evil, draped over the entire desert. She’d go and sit in the front of Tommy’s truck and lock the doors, hands shaking and heart pounding. She’d turn on the radio as loud as it’d go. She’d flip through channels, hoping to find one that would comfort her. Sometimes it was the oldies, or talk radio. Sometimes nothing at all would be comforting.

My love must be a kind of blind love

I can’t see anyone but you

Hours upon hours, back and forth between weeping and shaking. Pulling Tommy’s flannel tightly up to her nose, she’d crouch into the smallest ball she possibly could, old standards blaring. Most nights it wouldn’t happen. And some nights it would.

Blinding, sudden light. So white it bled through her closed eyes, so white it was blue. Then, the thrumming noise, unbearably loud and pulsing in her very skull. Then, the lights would dim, and she could look at it. She always looked at it, even if she didn’t want to. She couldn’t help herself. Maybe that was part of it. They were forcing her to look, somehow. Prying her eyelids open with invisible fingers.

The urn-shaped craft, whirring, spinning. Lights, dotted across its top, whirling around in a fashion like a carnival ride. White, blue white. Thrumming more and more slowly, and more and more deeply, until she thought her eardrums would burst. Then, the door. Then, a shaft of light, showing the outline of the door, and then-

Then nothing. It was gone. She never lost any time. The song on the radio was exactly where it should’ve been. Her head throbbed, throbbed so hard it felt like something trying to break out. She’d sit and weep, adrenaline coursing its way out of her body in wet gasps and plaintive wails.

It had happened several times a month for a year. Starting the day Tommy left.