Pages

Comfy Couch

On a comfy couch in the corner seat, you snuggle with the world. Whatever else: the wars, the debt, climate change, you wrap your arms around it and feel the pain and stress and paranoia and squeeze tight so it can’t breathe. A movie, or two. Popcorn on the table, in and out of sleep, the occasional cigarette, a text message. Barefoot between carpet and tile, reaching into the freezer for Ben and Jerry’s, back on the couch eating straight from the carton.

You’re protected by cushions. You can fall asleep for the night and wake up in the morning and make breakfast and it won’t matter. Another text message, mindless chatter, the only kind you could stand at this hour on a small electronic gadget, if you must. Face to face we could go deeper, if we wanted, but most likely I’d be in the other corner, curled up in a ball, and we’d just laugh because we could do anything but all we’d want is the couch and the tv and snacks anyway.

But you’re there and I’m here and we each need to get through the days, separately, working our jobs and doing chores and telling our families we love them and once in a while meeting friends for drinks or dinner or both. You clean the house and wait for the moment when the long day yields, you’re on the couch again, knowing I’m out there on a couch somewhere too, the great world spinning as we grip our pillows and rest.

Listless

Winston stared at the miniature house with its fresh coat of paint and its perch, feeling a mixture of pride and anxiousness.  Birds flying through his yard would now have their own special place to relax, and he envied them.

He paced around inside the house.  Eyes darting, he couldn’t find a trace of his ex-wife.

How to get over her completely?  He’d begun with a list of all the things he wanted to change about himself.  He learned to cook, established an exercise routine and vowed to stick with it, stopped watching so much television in favor of reading more books.  He made lists of herbs to plant in his garden, carpentry simple and complex around his home (the birdhouse being a small, most recent example), places around Philadelphia to visit via bicycle, new gastropubs to frequent, etc.  He even made a master list of his various lists, for organizational purposes.

But today he couldn’t think of a single thing he felt like doing.  Unnerved, he felt.  Who was he anymore without something to do?

Back in the backyard, he stood and stared.  A light breeze passed and made his neighbors' wind chimes chime.  He took a deep breath and sat in his favorite chair, an outdoor rocker with comfy cushions.  Maybe I’ll just do nothing for a few hours, he thought.

He fell into that peaceful zone between wakefulness and sleep.  A Dark-eyed Junco flew from a nearby tree and stopped momentarily on a fence post in Winston’s yard, listened to him as he snored.

Image courtesy of Steve Creek Outdoors

Domestic Situation (by Marylou Fusco)

After the baby finally stops crying and falls to sleep with little hitches and sighs, she remembers how she used to love being half naked in public. She wore shorty shorts and halter tops all the time if she could. A tinkly gold charm anklet and her toenails painted fire-engine red.

Now she’s sitting around in an old sweater and jeans waiting for Charlie to come home. Waiting sucks. Charlie said he was going out, be right back, and that could mean anything. It could mean fifteen minutes or an hour and a half. He could be picking up a pack of cigarettes or some diapers.

He could have a stocking cap pulled over his face, threatening a store clerk. The clerk sweating and fumbling with the cash. “Please, man. Here. Please, I got a kid.”

And Charlie would probably say, “The fuck? I’m not going to shoot you. I got a kid too.” Ha ha. He thinks he’s being funny.

There’s not much you can do to make a two rooms homey but she tries. Plants on the fire escape when the weather gets warm. Blue throw pillows here and here. When the case worker visits with her tidy notebook and sprayed black ponytail she blinks and looks around and around. She asks, “How about this? This domestic situation?”

When Charlie gets back he’ll smoke his single lonely cigarette in bed. The blue light pouring in from the window. Glass shattering on the street below them.  She’ll stand in that blue light and pull off her sweater. The fabric of her old bra straining against the weight of her new breasts. Every morning she leaks milk across her fingers and hides in the bathroom to taste its sweetness.

She doesn’t care about the gun in the dresser drawer, tucked far back beyond her good panties, doesn’t even think about it anymore because she knows how Charlie’s bones ache for one last hit. She knows how he still feels that pull in his guts and across every inch of his skin. That he resists and resists is the bravest, coolest thing ever.

When he gets home she’ll crawl under the covers with him, her flesh warming from the heat of his hands. Already she’s thinking; I forgive you. There’s nothing to forgive. We have a whole lifetime of doing the right thing.

(Marylou Fusco is a writer living in Philadelphia. Her work has appeared in Swink, Carve, and Rumble magazines.)