Thursday, May 24, 2018

page 994


by corinne delmonico




paul looked at the list of things helen had given him to pick up at the supermarket.

elastic bands… vitamin c tablets… dunkin donuts iced coffee drink… dish detergent… pomegranate juice… reese’s peanut butter cups… bottled water… corn chips… paper napkins… and on and on…

i don’t know why we need all this stuff, he said. a bear in the woods doesn’t need all this stuff.

it needs water, helen said.

but not in a plastic bottle.

it will drink it from a plastic bottle if a human leaves one in the woods. we have had this conversation before. it was not very amusing the first time. or the second or third.

i was just making an observation. i was just a guy making an observation,

if you want to live with the bears in the woods, go live with the bears in the woods. but if you wander into somebody’s lawn and they shoot you, don’t come crying to me.

i don’t know why you feel this insatiable need to belittle me. i am just a guy…

helen stood up. that’s it, she said, that is the 1,000th time you have said you are just a guy. i said when you hit that mark i would leave, and now i am.

but you can’y leave me now, paul protested.

no? why not?

because of everything that is happening. the seas are rising … an asteroid belt is threatening the earth… human values are eroding… a plague of spiders is infesting arizona and new mexico… the price of gold has collapsed… there are periodic blackouts all over north and south america… nobody has any respect… you can’t leave me now… we all have to stick together in times like these…

what is the point of sticking together if nobody has any respect? hmmm?

and with that helen went into the bedroom and emerged a few seconds later with her old red cardboard suitcase , the one she had purchased so many years ago in utica new york and carried all over the world.

well then, good bye, paul said.

good bye, just a guy.

the door closed by itself behind helen. she was gone.

finally.

now what, paul wondered.

he did not have to go to the store to buy any reese’s peanut butter cups or pomegranate juice.

there was a book of 1,000 crossword puzzles he had never quite finished. it should still be in the lower desk drawer.

he retrieved the book of crossword puzzles. he had done more than he remembered - 993.

he found a pencil and started to do the puzzle on page 994.

1 across - a flamboyant concatenation. a gratuitous rodomontade.



No comments:

Post a Comment