Tag Archives: marriage
The door creaked open. The bald florist on the other side offered K the same expression he offers him every year on the thirtieth of December – looking somewhat like a vet explaining to a crying child the fate of her shar-pei.
“Happy anniversary, K,” said the florist, presenting the same maudlin bouquet of half-dead flowers he presents every thirtieth of December.
“Thanks,” replied K heavily, reaching one arm through the gap in the door. “No card, I suppose?”
The florist shook his head. “I’m afraid not.” He looked at K with no expression: “Why do you keep putting yourself through this?”
K propped the rotting flowers on his hip. “I don’t know. I keep hoping that maybe this year it will be her knocking instead of” – he paused – “well, you. Not that I don’t like you.”
“It won’t, K. It’s been five years. She’s not coming back. At least she remembers your wedding day, I guess.” The florist shrugged and took his leave.
K closed the door and set the dying flowers – her favorites – on the kitchen table.
He then marked in his calendar exactly 51 weeks into the future, when he would place his next order with the bald florist.
Leave a comment | tags: affect, bouquet, break up, calendar, flash fiction, florist, flowers, heart break, marriage, relationships, Short Fiction, short story | posted in Man, Short Fiction, Woman
I must have fallen asleep, for I don’t know how long – at some point she had lit her favorite candle (shaped like a man’s bashed in skull), so I had probably slept a while. She was as I remembered: arms hugging her legs, book in her hands. The flame of her favorite candle looked like a man trying to shake off his own immolation. He writhed, casting her profile in varying depths of black.
She smiled. “Someone was tired.”
I rubbed my eyes. “I guess.”
The house was shadowy and cool.
“It’s snowing,” she said, eyes returned to her book.
I looked behind me. “Jesus,” I said, transfixed by the vast white on the other side of the window. “How long was I asleep?”
She shrugged. “A few days. It hasn’t been snowing this whole time, though. Just since yesterday.”
Yesterday?
I swung my legs off of the couch and stared at her. She caught my gaze, momentarily, before the shadow cast by her favorite candle swelled again.
“What,” she said from somewhere in the shadow. “I wanted to finish my book. But your friend K came over instead.”
The shadow receded from her face and she was still smiling.
Leave a comment | tags: affair, affect, book, burning, candle, darkness, fiction, fire, flame, flash fiction, house, marriage, reading, relationships, Short Fiction, short story, snow, winter | posted in Her, Me, Short Fiction
The photographer called again. “Just checking in. Are you okay?”
He had been calling everyday for the past week, leaving the same message: “It’s terrible. Just terrible.” I answered today, figuring that if he hadn’t caught his error by now, he never would.
“Are you sure you have the right number?”
“I’m sure. How are you holding up?”
“Um. Excuse me?”
“And this close to the wedding,” he continued to himself. “I’ll return your deposit. You’re dealing with enough.”
“We got married in December of last year.”
He paused: “I don’t think so…” His voice trailed off into confusion.
“I’m positive. You took our photos. My favorite one is on my desk.” Her head on my shoulder, my hand creeping up her dress; we looked like models in a perfume advertisement. The me in the picture stared back at me. Was he as confused as I was?
“Look, K,” the photographer whined. “It was on the news.”
I hung up and read on the internet about my wife’s death. I read, too, about our imminent vows.
I looked back at our picture. The me in the photo looked upset now, his hand continuing it ascent up my wife’s wedding dress.
Leave a comment | tags: accident, affect, death, December, fiction, flash fiction, love, marriage, news, photo, photographer, photography, picture, relationships, Short Fiction, short story, vows, wedding | posted in Her, Him, Me, Short Fiction
K sold the ring his fiancee had given him. Some guy in the parking lot of a sandwich shop gave him $400, claiming that it was identical to the one he lost, a gift from his own fiancee.
K spent the first $100 at a strip club, folding his stack of dollars into paper airplanes and cascading them into the air, like a little squadron of warplanes, toward the pretty but malnourished stripper.
K spent the remaining $300 on a fat prostitute. He had no desire to sleep with the fat prostitute. Instead, he wanted to ride her, like she was a horse.
K used to be a skilled equestrian and won many awards. K fell in love with a pretty lady, also an equestrian, skilled. They were to marry, but things fell apart; K never rode again. K moved away and decorated his meager apartment with his awards. The urge to ride was strong, but he refused to return to horses.
K demanded the fat prostitute remove her clothes. Then he climbed atop her. He rode her vociferously, until they both collapsed into a heap of flesh.
K slept heavily. When he woke, the prostitute was gone, and so were his awards.
Leave a comment | tags: addiction, affect, awards, body, capitalism, fat, fiction, flash fiction, horses, love, marriage, money, relationships, romance, sex, Short Fiction, short story, women | posted in Her, Me, Short Fiction, Woman
She sent herself to me, in a box wrapped with celebratory wrapping paper. By the time she arrived on my doorstep, a day late, the wrapping paper was badly tattered and you could see that the box she stuffed herself into was a shoe box that had contained men’s shoes, size 8.
She had a bow in her hair that was, in spite of the rough journey, relatively still in tact. Probably at one point positioned just so atop her head – like a halo – the bow barely clung to her forelocks.
She smiled at me when I opened the box and something unintelligible leaked from her badly distressed lips.
“That’s from stress you know,” I said, falling immediately back into my long neglected role.
“Fuck off,” she whispered playfully. Her makeup was smeared against the insides of the box and missing from her face almost entirely.
I picked her up from the box and kissed her, bristling against her dry lips.
Then I frowned, peered into the empty box. “Where’s the rest of you?”
It was her turn to frown. “It’s not important.”
I tucked her under my arm and marched inside. “I wish you would have told me you were coming,” I said. “I would have tidied up.”
“Happy birthday,” she said, changing the subject. She uncoiled her tongue to offer me a shiny tungsten ring. It was the one I wanted.
“How long are you staying?”
“Until I bleed to death.”
Then she sunk her teeth into her tongue.
Leave a comment | tags: affect, body, capitalism, death, fiction, flash fiction, love, marriage, pain, relationships, romance, shoes, Short Fiction, short story | posted in Her, Me, Short Fiction
Never did I think I would love, for love was a ridiculous, childish concept.
But I loved, finally, in spite of myself. I loved, I knew, because I thought only of her, always. Because she was my default, my origin.
She says, “Fuck you, K,” in a voice that craves verbal violence, disappearing from view even though I can see her, touch her. I reach, she recoils – a perverse dance. She looks at me with the eyes a stranger, yanking her engagement ring from her finger, throwing it out the window.
I go outside and sift through the bushes. I find her ring floating in a dog’s water dish.
I pretend I am not relieved and go back inside. She is dead, having swallowed my pain killers.
I put her ring on her lithe, cold finger. I press her lithe, cold finger to my lips.
Then I go to sleep, taking the same pain killers. I dream of our wedding. Our families are present. We are happy.
I wake up, see her dead body at the kitchen table, coax myself back to sleep. Again our wedding, our families, our happiness.
I wake, finish my pain killers, kiss my phantom bride.
1 Comment | tags: affect, death, dog, drugs, flash fiction, love, marriage, pain, relationship, Short Fiction, short story, sleep, water, wedding | posted in Her, Me, Short Fiction
We hadn’t seen each other since college. Our friendship ended abruptly because we were in love with the same woman. He wanted to fight over her. I politely declined and wished him well.
I wasn’t surprised when he told me of their breakup. Everybody knew that this particular woman had been adamant about remaining a virgin until marriage.
“You lucked out, K,” he said with a mouthful of vodka. “She never caved.”
The way he described their sexless courtship – hours of cuddling and making out – was rather charming.
His eyes lit up. “I saw her last week. She called and told me that she’s married now. Then she invited me over. Before we broke up, she promised to have sex with me once she was married – even if she wasn’t married to me. I guess she was serious.”
“Did you?”
“Of course.”
“And her husband?”
“She told me that you’re her husband and that you’ll probably kill me. She said you’ll have a sharp knife with you.”
I put the knife on the table and shrugged. “I’m not going to kill you with this.” I nodded toward his empty martini glass and watched his throat tighten. “Thanks for the drink.”
Leave a comment | tags: affect, alcohol, bar, body, death, flash fiction, love, marriage, martini, murder, relationships, romance, sex, Short Fiction, short story, virgin, virginity, vodka | posted in Her, Him, Me, Short Fiction, Uncategorized
When K told me that he was going to kill himself if I stole his girlfriend, I didn’t believe him. I didn’t think that I could steal his girlfriend.
K was wealthy and educated, and what girl would refuse such a man? I was the opposite in every respect; had I found myself on the Titanic or an equal vessel I would have had to steal my way aboard. I began flirting with her simply out of spite, as if to insinuate to K that although he could have whatever he wanted, I could take it from him with ease (rich men have large egos, which is a huge turnoff).
I didn’t enjoy fucking her. Indeed, I courted her out of spite. And she, the caged bird of a wealthy birdist, allowed me to court her for the same reason.
She and I were upstairs when K’s telegram arrived, announcing his imminent demise—“…by the time you read this I will be dead.”
“Shit. K’s dead,” I said after reading the telegram. She, still in my bed, feigned sadness.
“I guess you’ll have to marry me now.” She coiled my blanket snuggly around her.
K, from somewhere safe, probably smiled.
Leave a comment | tags: affect, death, ego, flash fiction, marriage, money, relationships, sex, Short Fiction, short story, spite, telegram, wealth | posted in Her, Me, Short Fiction
I glared at her from the other side of my martini.
Having wanted to break up with her for the past three weeks but not really knowing how, I convinced myself that she did something very malicious and harmful. That she deserved to be dumped. Bitch.
I took another drink and waited for the right moment. She prattled on about this and that. Her career. Her new tattoo. Her near death experience.
“A man threw me out of his living room window once. I fell thirteen stories.” I was suddenly intrigued. I reached across the table and took her hand. I married her two weeks later.
She tried to kill me a week after that. I pushed her in front of a bus shortly after. I dropped my wedding ring in the gutter and moved away.
Yesterday I overheard a man in a bar talking about his new girlfriend. “It dragged her for at least fifty feet. Can you believe it?”
“Sorry to interrupt, ” I said. “She’s wicked.” I offered a knife. “You’ll need this.”
There was a news report today about a man killing his girlfriend with a knife. Her picture flashed on the screen. I didn’t recognize her.
Leave a comment | tags: affect, break up, death, knife, love, marriage, news, relationships, ring | posted in Her, Me
“Seeking new husband. Must meet the following criteria:…”
K wanted to apply for the position. But he knew he wouldn’t make the cut. While he had loved her for years, he was not as robust or as rich as the new man he needed to be.
One morning K, her neighbor and life-long “friend,” watched as a line of men began materializing in front of her house. Soon the line of men stretched the length of the street.
At 2 pm, she opened her front door. For the next 10 hours, men entered the house, men left the house. By 1 AM the line had dwindled. Having nothing to lose, K got in line—the last candidate.
“K, what are you doing? You know you can’t apply. Plus, [Redacted] wore J Crew exclusively.”
K frowned. He marched into the bedroom and examined the deceased’s wardrobe.
“The new one has to wear J Crew too.” She was behind him.
“Was that in your ad?”
“Toward the bottom.”
“ I hate J Crew.”
“I know.”
K put his hand to her cheek and she pressed back into it. Then he left, but not before stealing a pair of the deceased’s J Crew socks—which he kinda liked.
Leave a comment | tags: affect, clothes, death, fashion, flash fiction, friendship, husband, interview, J. Crew, love, marriage, relationships, socks, stealing, wife | posted in Man, Short Fiction, Woman
The florist was clear: you needed the petals from 450 roses. Just perfect, she thought, for she had always planned on asking for K’s hand approximately 450 days after their first date–thus one rose to commemorate each day spent together. Ever the progressive sort, she forbade K to ask her to marry him: When I’m ready, I’ll ask you, she said 300 days ago.
150 days later, she did just that. At a restaurant way out of her price range. It was romantic, if financially ill-advised. They swiftly made plans to marry and she dutifully began plucking the petals from 450 roses. See, she had this grand idea of spreading the petals over the floor of the catherdral where they would claim ownership of each other; a floral walkway from entrance to alter.
She coaxed her vision to fruition, successfully scattering the petals of 450 roses like the ashes of 450 dead things the morning of their wedding. Then she customarily hid herself away until the appropriate time.
But that time never came because K slipped on her rose petal path and broke his neck in an overdetermined fall.
The florist had said something about that possibility. But she pretended not to hear.
Leave a comment | tags: church, cremation, death, florist, marriage, petals, roses, wedding | posted in Man, Short Fiction, Woman
