Damn television sets. Three blaring away and the sun still down. Noxious distractions – news that’s not news, fear mongering masquerading as news, and the third with adverts for pills for conditions they don’t treat here. Suppose they treat the side effects though. We’re all side effects now. A soda machine? Fake plants? Don’t treat me when it’s my time, chuck me on the ice flow.
Screech.
Huh? Oh, the door. Two more poor souls – which is sick and which will wait? Wait. That’s all we do our entire lives and it never comes, whatever it is.
Good god she’s beautiful. Could pass for Evelyn if she had lived. To wake up beside that messed brown hair; dark downcast eyes barely open. I hope she’s waiting. She’s no fool, look how she sits – impeccable posture, in command. She has a solid job, something reliable but infused with passion and creativity – designing layouts for fashion magazines. Too intellectual to be a model herself but could have easily been. At least it lets her travel and live where she pleases. Thank god for the Internet, huh, Evelyn? Sure, Minnesota will always be home and fill her heart but life takes her around the globe. I mean, it’s because of that that we’ll meet in an overplayed situation – a hotel bar. I’m there for a weekend seminar and hating every minute but at least the firm is paying for the booze. We click but exchange nothing beyond words, no bodily fluids, not even names. But the next day when the man tries to steal her purse and stab her with a screwdriver I’m there and give chase and recover the purse. We talk more and more and when we’re in the same city I wake up beside that messed brown hair. After months and months it’s too much – propose or end this. I propose, she accepts. We settle down in the Midwest in a city, (we both hate the suburbs), that neither of us has ever been to before. We don’t discuss children but when one comes along we’re overjoyed and welcome her with open arms.
Screech.
“Excuse me, Miss Delacroix? We’re ready for you.”
“Allez, ils sont prets pour nous. Thank you nurse, we’ll be right there.”
French? She can’t be French, she’s from Minneapolis.
Screech.
And there she goes. And here I am.
Screech.
“Mr. Conway? Could you come this way please? There’s been some more complications with your father.”
“Complications? Oh. Okay. Sure.”
French. How could she be French?
Gregory T. Janetka is a writer from Chicago who currently lives in the outskirts of San Diego. His work has previously been published in Foliate Oak, Flyover County Review and Gambling the Aisle. He is terribly good at jigsaw puzzles and drinks a great deal of tea. More of his writings can be found at gregorytjanetka.com.
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