Category: Fiction

fiction by Jason Edwards

The sound of a car driving on wet pavement a few block away, a few hours after it rained for a few minutes. November, probably. Wet leafs on the sidewalk, that’s how she always spelled them in her head, leafs. A cable knit sweater, once white and now washed grey. Forest green corduroy pants. The whisk whisk of thighs rubbing together. Skinny legs, bloated with thermal underwear. Fiery red hair a jumbled mess above, gigantic rubber-soled clogs below. What the Dutch would have worn if their wooden-shoesmiths had heard of Adidas. Thick woolen socks. No desire to go back to that house.

The smell of tobacco. Not cigarettes per se, not smoke, just tobacco. Like what pipes smell like, or cigars for people new to cigars and not so tongue-worn that stronger nasty stuff is required. What her father used to smell like. A sweet smell. Three houses ahead, on the right, a pumpkin, bright orange, fat, leering, grinning, laughing despite the hole kicked in one side. Even the best neighborhoods have hoodlums. Especially the best neighborhoods have hoodlums.

Algebra. Baby’s slept two hours at a time, ten times a day, for three weeks. That makes more sleep than she’s had in the last thirteen months. Father dies, mother stoops, go with her to church, meet a man, date a man, sleep with a man, get pregnant by a man, don’t even bother wondering where the man went. Those two blissful weeks when she knew she was pregnant and didn’t have to tell anyone, and he was there every Wednesday night.

A dog barking in the distance. Waiting for other dogs to join the howl, but it’s only afternoon, not night time, no moon, no prowlers, no ghosts. Not yet. In a few weeks the baby will be old enough to still be too young to eat leftover Halloween candy. Thump goes the feet on the porch, ding dong goes the bell, tense goes the neck not looking at the baby in the crib in the dark. Ding dong ding dong, baby doesn’t wake up, thump go the feet on the porch. She’s lucky, later, the kids threw eggs. Only eggs.

An intersection, one tree-lined street meets another, the asphalt slippery silver in confused lamps turning on too early. That overcast sky, those clouds made of last summer’s sunshine. What do you mean, you’re pregnant. Ma, it was Gideon, the one from church. That’s impossible, he seemed like such a nice man. I know. When are you due? October, probably. Probably? I haven’t been eating well, Ma. Me neither, not since your father passed.

Turn left, go several miles, her mother’s house. Turn right, go several blocks, the church. Go straight, several towns, the ocean. Turn around, the baby. Which direction to Gideon. She looks up. Hi dad. She looks down. What do I do now.

She keeps walking. If it were sunny out, she might have freckles. She’d be nowhere near a cable knit sweater. Her breasts would be small and free inside something strappy and light, freckles on her shoulders, freckles on her arms. Her breasts would not be slung into a couple of rough sacks, heavy with whatever she was supposed to eat last week when the baby kept her up all night. You’re dry, Delilah, you won’t feed, you’re not cold, why can’t you sleep? Do you take after your father? Did he ever sleep?

She walks another few blocks, the wind brushes her cheeks, plays with her hair, makes her warm and cold at the same time. On the phone at three am. Who is this. Ma, it’s me Ma, oh Ma, why won’t she sleep? What? What do I do, she won’t sleep, I’m so tired. Just leave her, you idiot. But she cries all night, what do I do. Make sure she’s safe and go to sleep. Is that? Is that what? Is that what you did with me? Good heavens. Sitting there in the dark letting the baby’s wails pulse the dial tone in and out of her ears.

Algebra. She has neighbors, she must have neighbors, there’s trash cans outside by the curb once a week, and then gone again. There’s yards that are mowed and then not mowed and them mowed again. Not every house gets egged, some of them had porch lights burning on Halloween. If baby cries for an hour and then screams for two, surely someone will hear. Someone will come, thump thump goes the feet on the porch, ding dong goes the bell, wail wail goes the baby, maybe a knock on the door, the door is ajar, the baby is found. And taken away. Yes?

fiction by Jason Edwards

The alarm goes off and she says no, goddamnit no, and eight minutes later it goes off again. She doesn’t remember hitting snooze, but she hits it again and eight seconds later the alarm goes off one more time. No goddamnit no, but she’s got her armor and helmet on and is standing next to her bed, groping for her sword. There it is. She’s girded and standing in front of the refrigerator, first light of the day. Yogurt.

In the garage and on her horse, pats him on his haunches as if he needs calming, as if he hasn’t done this before. Rode into battle, mud and blood, sword and rain, lightning striking as many as axe and club, the dead piled up and the crows perched on top looking for eyeballs. This horse, an old hand at battle.

She gets in, cranks the radio, CD player, something someone burned for her once, she doesn’t hear the words, doesn’t hear the melody, only hears the drum, the cadence, the call to war, go to war, fight, fight, kill and if you do not kill maim and if you do not maim rape, rape them all, rip them to pieces and make them curse their mothers. Or something. Fucking Tuesdays.

Takes back roads because the horse doesn’t like dealing with streetlights. Passes castles and huts, shacks and palaces. What’s inside them. Knights and soldiers and damsels, oh my. All of them dreaming of some other places, green fields and blue skies and flowers and rabbits and happy shit. Happiness. It’s shit. She blinks at the horizon, dreading the dawn. Maybe she need some caffeine.

Arrives at the dungeon, parks the horse, bag of oats, can’t take you in there, old man, the walls are too narrow and it would do murder to the carpets. Gargoyle at the front desk stirs, stone skin crackling around a murderous smile. Good morning, it says, you’re going to die in there, they’ll feast on your insides, your soul will be ripped into little pieces. Do you want a towel? Have a great workout!

Puts eldritch runes in her ears, the ancient gearworks of dwarves, music pours in, drowns out the thump thump thump of treadmills, the swish of ellipticals, the cling tang of maces, mornings starts, shields crashing, pates smitten and leg bones breaking. Finds a treadmill of her own. Does a few stretches first. Her armor’s tight on her legs, tight on her chest, already chafing, hungry for sweat, eager for tears. Tears.

On the treadmill, draws her sword, runs into battle. Up the hill and over! The mass of orcs and goblins laying waste to the King’s army, wades into it, sword singing, swinging, chops off a head, sends it flying over the gym floor, spinning in the air and spraying black ichor over fat men in sweat suits and skinny bitches in juicy couture. An ogre strikes at her with his club the size of a tree, she glances the blow with her shield, tucks, rolls, jumps up and skewers him, breaking her sword off at the hilt, steps up his falling body and leaps, snags a flying spear from the air, twirls at she comes down on the neck of a dragon and impales him, nailing it to the ground.

Punches a few more tenths of a mile per hour, sets the incline one percent higher, spins around a sword thrust, blocks a cut with her leather bracers, grabs the brigands head and breaks his neck, uses his body as a shield, a cloud of arrows raining down. Throws the body to the side, leaps, knocks a dark knight from his horse and takes the steed for her own, running through the melee, trampling kobolds and dark elves. The guy on the treadmill next to her says something.

What?

Going long today?

Maybe. But you’re not, wizard. Pulls her dagger from her belt, a flick of her wrist and blood courses down his chest, electricity and oily smoke pouring from his robes as he vibrates into death. Plucks his wizard hat from his head, throws it into the mud, steps on it and flies up from the explosion, above the battle field, grabs a flying Valkyrie, wrestles her in the sky until the both plummet back down. She rips the wings from her back, tosses them aside, and steps forward into the fray.

The rain is coming down harder now, the battle is unrelenting, her cell phones rattles. It’s Carla. Can I get a ride into work today? Doug needs the car. Goddamnit. Checks her watch. 30 minutes. She was hoping for 45. Ah well. It’s just a fucking Tuesday.

Hits the button for stop, hops off the treadmill and walks over to the paper towel dispenser, grabs a few sheets. Wipes off the blood and gore, the mud, bits and pieces of her enemies, green and blue, broken dragon scales and the leathery hides of trolls. Walks to the exit, heartbeat calming, smiles at the gargoyle, finds her steed and drives back home.

Divests herself of her armor, gets into the shower, the steam and the sharp smell of lilac shampoo. Now she’s drowsy again. In danger of falling asleep right there. So luxurious. Manages to get out, towel off, get dressed.

Back in her car, switches from the CD player to the radio. It’s only two miles to Carla’s house, and then 25 minutes on the highway to work. She sits in her car for a few seconds, getting herself ready. They’ve discovered a new system of planets in an otherwise unexplored corner of the galaxy. Time to get out there and see what the universe has in store for her today.

fiction by Jason Edwards

Gary Allweather, number 9, forward for the Gila County Rattlers, Arizona Outdoor Basketball League (AOBL), dribbles, sets, shoots. The ball disappears into the blazing sunlight, blinding anyone foolish enough to track it. On instinct, Bert Fourtrees jumps up for the rebound, but the ball goes swish, and it’s 87-85, Rattlers. Gary hustles back on D.

The Graham County Scorpions play the ball in-bounds, barely past some good D from Bert, then move up the court, quickly. There’s only 10 seconds left on the clock. A quick pass, Gary tries to dive and intercept but misses. Number 7 is on the outside, sets a pick, moves past the Rattlers defense, fakes a jumper and passes it outside to number 83, who sets himself for a three. Bert appears out of nowhere to try and swat at the shot, but he misses, and the ball rises and falls. Swish. Scorpions by one, and there’s three seconds left on the clock.

Three Scorpions at the base line, waving their arms in front of Bert, who fakes an overhead pass, a pass from his hip, then takes a step back and simply tosses the ball over their hands to Gary. Gary catches the ball, dribbles, spins around some sloppy D, dribbles, brings the ball up for an impossible shot. He’s barely at half court, he needs to hurl it. He throws it up high. The ball’s off his fingertips and disappearing into the sun as the buzzer sounds.

The buzzer wails as the ball goes up, and continues to wail. The old men in the stands rise to their feet, picking up their shotguns. Their eyes are fixed on the scoreboards, which is propped on the scorer’s table at half-court. Mickey Torrance, 47, has his finger on the red button to smash it down if the ball goes in. His own eyes are glued to the basketball rim.

None of the players are moving. Sometimes, once the buzzer goes, a few cowards start to run for the hills, but the old men are excellent shots, and usually cut them down before they get too far away. This time everyone’s frozen. Watching that rim. A few idiots are squinting up at the sun, looking for the ball, blinding themselves.

Gary’s frozen too, because he doesn’t want to get caught in the crossfire. As soon as that ball left his fingertips, he knew. He just knew. That ball is going through that basket, will go through with a swish. There isn’t a cloud in the sky. There isn’t a lick of breeze. It’s a sweltering August Tuesday in Cochise County, Arizona, this is the championship game, the losers get their heads blown off by the old men with the shotguns, and the winners get to go home with the losers’ wives. Gary is going to go find number 7’s wife and show her what winners do in the sack, and he doesn’t give a good god damn if she is fat and ugly. Serves number 7 right, throwing elbows the entire game.

The game should have been a slam dunk, no pun intended (slam dunks are not allowed in the AOBL). Should have been an easy win for the Rattlers. But there was chicanery. Gary knew there was going to be chicanery from the start, because none of the Scorpions wives bothered to stay home with their doors locked. They were all at the game, sitting in the fan stands, behind the bullet-proof plexiglass. None of them were even wearing black. They should have been afraid of the Rattlers, been afraid of Gary, and especially afraid of Bert Fourtrees, who’d already won three championships and had four wives and sixteen kids to prove it.

But the Scorpions were out for blood, threw elbows, travelled, stepped on the line and didn’t get called for it. The damn refs. Gary knows better than to blame the refs for a bad game, but this was absurd. Foul? You call that a foul? A lumbering number 7 plowed into Gary who’s standing flat-footed two feet off the free-throw line, and you called that a foul? Are you looking to have a man sneak into your house later tonight and open you up with a serrated bowie knife, ref?

But it doesn’t matter. That ball is going in. Gary knows it like he knew his first was going to be a boy and his second a girl. Knows it like he knows where Bert was at all times, without looking, and could feed him a pass with his eyes shut. Knows it like he knows that Jesus Christ was nailed to the cross so that poor sumbitches likes the Scorpions had a shot at heaven after the old men get done mowing them down in the next minute. Just as soon as Mickey presses that red button and the scoreboard reads 90-88. Just as soon as that damn ball comes out of the sky and through that rim.

A buzzard flies across the court, lazily, sensing the incoming carnage. The ball drops out of the sky, hits the buzzard, hard, knocking it to the ground. The buzzard makes a squawking sound, loud in the sudden silence of the buzzer going quiet. The ball misses the basket by three feet. The buzzard flies away. Mickey dives under the scorer’s table, and the old men open up with their shotguns.

Later, the buzzard comes back, with friends, and they dine on Rattlers for most of the night.

fiction by Jason Edwards

We knew it was going to be expensive but once we came up with the idea we knew we had to do it. We started by collecting DNA from John, Paul, George, and Ringo. Out of all of them, who do you think was the toughest to dig up? Turns out it was Ringo, who’s got some pretty weird fans. We had back-up samples of DNA taken from museum artifacts, which were easy enough to get a hold of. But Ringo’s DNA was always too damaged, which is not an indictment of his lifestyle, just the truth about the way DNA decays on various objects. And digging him up proved very difficult, in large part because of a cult that sits at his grave side twenty-four seven. But we managed to trick them abandoning the place for a day, by infiltrating their organization, getting into their upper-level management, adjusting a few of their corporate tax holdings, and announcing a fake tribute concert half-way around the globe. They all went in protest, leaving behind what they thought were loyal members to guard the grave. But it was us, and we got the DNA samples we needed, and then some. In fact, we took a whole foot. We had planned on taking a hand, but then it was pointed out that Ringo was a drummer, and his hands were probably the most important– and thus worshiped– part of his body. Also, we deduced that the DNA in Ringo’s hand might be too damaged, itself, owing to all the blisters he regularly got in the recording studio. So we left the hands, and took a foot. However, even this caused some controversy amongst us, as the foot is itself used for the hi-hat pedal and the bass pedal. We argued for hours, with some of us insisting it didn’t matter, since he was going to be buried again and no one would be the wiser, and still others suggesting that this cult could one day, conceivably, dig up Ringo’s body and find the foot missing. Of course they’d never trace it back to us. Indeed, if our plans came to fruition, one of the side effects would the dissolution of this cult altogether (a minor side effect, and not a guaranteed one, but highly probable, and accounting for only about thirty or forty lines of code in our prediction engine). But if things did not go as predicted, there was a chance this cult could dig up Ringo, find the foot missing, assume it had something to do with something spiritual, lop off their own feet, and embark on a globe-sweeping journey to remove the bass-pedal track from every Beatles record, tape, cd, and mp3 in existence. We had at least 15 chaos mathematicians working with us that that time, and they all agreed (!) that since nothing can be predicted with 100% accuracy, the only sure thing was that things would go exactly as we thought they would, which had an exact 0% chance of happening. So, in the end, we decided to take the foot, and leave behind a fake. Several of us volunteered to sacrifice their own foot for the fake, and that’s when we realized our group had been infiltrated by members of the Ringo Graveside cult, who had joined us to avoid a schism which was burgeoning thanks to some members wanting to dig the poor man up. Other did not want him to be dug up, but recognized that there might be other organizations that did want to dig him up. The ones in the cult who wanted to dig up Ringo put forward the idea to infiltrate our group, ostensibly to stop us from digging him up, but really to partake in the exhumation. A careful check of our minutes from the graveside event show that these were the same people who had argued vehemently against taking one of his hands, but were just as vehement about taking one of his feet and leaving a decoy in its place. Turns out the cult members who wanted to create a pro-exhumation faction had themselves suffered a schism, with one side wanting to dig up Ringo, and the other side wanting to swap one of his body parts for their own. But they couldn’t decide who’s body part amongst them should be swapped, so they decided to let fate determine it, by infiltrating our group and volunteering for the foot swap. Why not a hand swap? They all had identity tattoos on their hands– three, actually: one from the grave side protection cult, one from the dig-him-up faction, and one from the body-part-swap schism. We asked them why they used tattoos on their hands to identify themselves, and they said it was to avoid anyone sneaking into their cult. When we pointed out that we had snuck into their cult, they pointed out that they had allowed us to do so to support the factionalism and the schism. We felt very stupid at the point. But we got the DNA, and that was what was important.

The rest was cloning the Beatles, cloning the audience at their Ed Sullivan show performance, and raising the clones in environments identical to what they’d each grown up in, then setting up a reenactment of the show. It went pretty well. We got the whole thing on video, but this time in color. Worth it.

Been meaning to get some of these “published” over at Rife With Typos for a while now, from last year… I got lazy around July or so, and while I did write a few things, I entered a heavy meh stage. I don’t know of meh is a Yiddish word, but I bet they got a word for it.

Then there’s the daily stories I’ve been writing over at 750words.com. This, you see, is the examined life, for I examined mine and determined that I’d been wasting too much time with mindless internet surfing and meme chasing. The new trivia, memes, and being up-to-date on the latest just means I haven’t been doing anything remotely productive. For crying out loud, I’m 40, and I know where “Jelly?” comes from. (And no, damnit, I’m not hyperlinking that.) The point is, I figure if I write at least 750 words every day, that’s better than the nuthin’ I was doin’ before.

So here’s the fruit of other labors. I’m not saying this is any better, in the long run, for the world, than me just sitting there clicking on pictures of cats. But if you want ‘em, come and get em.

Gratuitous Violence (1741 words) is a silly dialogue written with no regard to factual history, contains some 24 footnotes, and is on the subject of predestination. Sort of.

One Vagina in Particular (2068 words) was written for no other reason than the last sentence.

The Fattest Zombie in the World (1802 words) is yet another zombie story (I’m trying to write enough to get a whole book of ‘em together) and is almost nearly in a more traditional vein than my usual zombie nonsense.

On the Day of My Mother’s Funeral I Woke Up a Changed Man (3368 words) is written with no apologies or even regard for Franz Kafka, and didn’t get put up on the website sooner because it’s so darn (for me) long (that’s what she said!).

Max is a Total Retard (663 words) was written back in 2004, an “assignment” from a little writing club we were trying to get started. I don’t recall what the assignment was.

The Way of the Hummingbird (951 words) was written in 2006 and I don’t know why I wrote it, but it’s got a stinger at the end, where I get all sanctimonious on your ass.

And the following ten were written one on each day this year, in more or less one sitting, and with no real purpose in mind. If you want, send me an email and I’ll print them in booklet form and you can give it to your friends and they will say “Gosh, I never met anyone before who really does know an actual megalomaniacal lunatic.”

Being Mila Kunis (posted on this blog January 1st) | Fate for Dummies | Death by Laundry | Suicide Note | The Most Important Person in the Restaurant | Lester Waiting (posted on this blog January 7th) | Your Name Was Albert | Step On A Crack | Twins | There Is No I in Assume

Enjoy.

fiction by Jason Edwards

Lester sits in his rocking chair on his porch smoking a cheroot. Well, almost. The rocking chair doesn’t really rock very much, because it’s more of an overstuffed easy chair, had it longer than his oldest child (42, a complete waste of space). And the porch is more like a den, since it’s really a den, something the real-estate bitches call a “bonus room.” Bonus, my ass, Lester likes to say to himself. And the cheroot is really just an old ball-point pen he found lying around. One of his wife’s. The ones she used to do the crossword puzzles with. She used to be pretty damned good at them.

Actually, come to think of it, Lester isn’t really sure what a cheroot is. He knows cowboys smoke them on occasion, out on the prairie. Or out in the Badlands, wherever those are. Lester likes to think he had a pretty good life once, idle, sitting around in his rocking chair, reading westerns, sipping on coffee so bitter it would stain your socks. But he’s never really ever read a western. Go up to him some time and say “just washed my hair with some Zane Grey” and he’d chalk that up to the fancy way those Madison avenue assholes advertise shampoo.

It’s not dark in the den, but it soon will be. Lester decided, when his wife died, he’d stick it out in the house as long as there was one bulb still burning. Then he waited for that pop in each room. The bedrooms went first. When the bathroom went, he barely noticed. When the bulbs in the kitchen went, there was some trouble, but then he started opening the refrigerator to see things if he needed to. Then he had a bad thought– does the refrigerator bulb count? Because those never go out. And then one day it did go out and he decided that was that and now, four years later, the only bulb left was here in the den. And so he waited.

He waits under the bulb, which now burns twenty-four hours a day, in his overstuffed chair, a gift from his wife. Anniversary. His gift to her was that damned baby, which she discovered was inside her a month or so later. Then they had another one. A girl, not much use to anyone. Then one more boy, a sickly thing, liked rock n’ roll and voted democrat and Lester sometimes forgot his name. He hadn’t spoken to any of them since the wife died.

He waits under the bulb, pretends he’s in a rocking chair, pretends he’s on the porch, smoking a cheroot and sipping really bad coffee, waiting for his wife to come back from some damn charity thing or another. She was always doing that, volunteering down at the church or taking baked goods to the old folks in that home they had on Park. Well, sort of. She never actually volunteered for anything, was sort of a bitter woman, and a cynic, and died of heart failure one night in their bed. It had been years since he’d touched her, and when he did, and she was cold, he wasn’t sure if that meant she was dead, or if that was just what old women felt like. But after he’d shouted in her ear a few times and threatened to burn his own toast if she didn’t wake up, and she didn’t wake up, he called the paramedics.

Sits in that chair and sometimes gets up to eat a cold can of soup or maybe some bread that those volunteer bitches bring over now and again. Real soup, not pretend soup this time. Real bread. He barely tastes it. Drinks water from a glass he never washes, never needs to, water right out of the tap. Did you know they sell bottled water to people these days? Small little bottles if you want them, even for people who have plumbing? Waste of space.

Sometimes he falls asleep in the chair, and every so often he wakes up and thinks about it and goes to clean himself and change his clothes. Somebody washes them every once in a while. He never turns on the TV. Sometimes, if he’s feeling frisky, he pretends to turn on the TV. But then he realizes it’s pretty stupid to keep a TV on the porch, so he pretends to turn it off and then unpretends it away.

Lester had led an unremarkable life, he knows it, and he also knows that he’ll be dead soon, which is fine. Not that he’s looking forward to it, anticipating it. More like death is a Wednesday and who complains about Wednesdays? Just a day like any other. He’s pretty sure he’ll be dead when this last bulb burns out. Knows it like he knows he doesn’t know what a cheroot is.

Once, when he was asleep, that girl, his daughter, came over. She flipped the switch off so he could sleep in the dark, and the darn thing went pop, so she changed it. Climbed right up on top of him and changed it. Actually, that happened more than once. The bulbs he keeps in the garage are pretty damned cheap.

fiction by Jason Edwards

My wife had one of her fits again and kicked me out of the house again and once again I ended up in a random location to wait it out. This time the gym. Maybe it’s because her condition manifests in “fits,” a word that reminded me of “fitness,” and my gym has that word in its name. I wish more establishments were this straightforward in their naming. I get so tired of clever names for places, like “A Stitch in Thyme” for a combination yarn and spice store. I wonder sometimes if the owners of such places think of the name first and only then try to start a business that fits. Madness. Probably one of the things that drives my wife occasionally bonkers. Fortunately I keep a bag in the trunk of my car with spare clothes, and my gym provides towels and shower soaps.

I was on that sort of cut-away second-floor that gyms have, an overlarge balcony, or loft you could call it I suppose. I had, much to my dismay, forgotten to snag my iPad before running out of the house ahead of a hail of thrown teacups, so I was stuck on the elliptical machine with nothing to watch except the distant glass-walled basketball court. Therein a young Asian man and what I could only assume was his grandmother were playing one-on-one. Maybe it was his mother. Maybe an aunt. Maybe a family friend. Certainly not a friend in the traditional sense of it. I mean, can you imagine, this Asian kid, Japanese maybe, into video games and manga and hentai and bukkaki and other such things, texting this septuagenarian and asking if she felt like getting in a game of 21 and then maybe some pearl tea at the nearby joint. Rapping about local politics, his college choices, her bursitis. Do old Japanese women even get bursitis? Or is that only old Jewish women? Of course they must, but I wonder what they call it.

And then Mila Kunis walked over and got on the elliptical machine next to mine. Not the Mila Kunis, of course. I mean, I assume it was not the actual Mila Kunis. Why would she be in this town, at this gym, this time of year, this time of day? I’m pretty sure she doesn’t live in the area. Hollywood or New York or someplace exciting. Not here. So, no, not the famous Mila Kunis, but a young woman who looked so much like her I was compelled to say “Hi Mila” as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

“Hi,” she said back, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. As if we really did know each other. Just like the receptionist at the building where I work. Most mornings she’s there when I walk in, and I say “Hi Mila,” (I don’t know her name, but she’s the spitting image of Mila Kunis too) and she says “Hello Mr. Shoeshine” which is our little joke since my name isn’t Shoeshine but it does sort of sound like Shoeshine. We’ve been doing this exchange for years, and I’m fairly certain the receptionist would like to sleep with me. But I know she’s married to a little wimp of a man, and I’d hate to break his spirit by bedding his wife. Not that I’d mind otherwise. She’s a plump little thing, the kind considered ravishing in the 50s, and I often wonder what kind of strong elastic must be holding up the stocking on those wonderfully thick thighs of hers.

And that was how this Mila said hello back to me there in the gym, and I was so struck by the familiarity, I asked her “how’s things?” as if that’s how we usually start our conversations. “Oh, you know. Busy, but not too busy to sweat a little I guess.” I was already sweaty myself, so I said “You’re telling me” and we laughed the way old friends laugh. We worked-out or workouts next to each other like that and the Asian kid and his grandmother finished their basketball game. He more or less kicked her ass, but she still gave him a kiss when they were done.

After a while Mila started to slow down on her elliptical and I was nearing the end of my own lengthy routine as well. I asked her what the rest of the day had in store for her and she said not much, really, then asked if I’d like to go back to her motel with her. And that’s when I was certain this was not the real Mila Kunis for sure, since the real one, surely, would never stay in a cheap motel. I agreed to go back with her, of course, and so we went there, in separate cars, and had incredibly bad sex before taking an uncomfortable shower together. But as awful as the sex was, and as awkward as the shower was, there was that sense of familiarity about it, like the disappointment of it all was somehow comforting. We got dressed and watched some TV and then I said I should get home to my wife and she said yes I should. So I left.

I drove home, and my wife was not there, so I swept up the broken tea cups and straightened the crooked pictures on the wall and eventually my wife came home. She handed me the credit card receipt for the motel room, complained of a headache, said she’d see me when I got to work the next morning, and went up to bed. So I went out into the backyard to eat bugs because I’ve been told that’s what insane people do.