–AND TONIGHT, EVERY SINGLE STAR IS SHINING, THE POWER LINES ALL SIZZLE AND BUZZ

 

 

 

Enigmas, Atrocities and Miracles

 

They clung to obscurity the way all long-lasting lovers do, reliability being a key endorphin. 

After so many years, their bones knew each other like twins engaged in backseat telepathy. The man’s frame was now bent into a question mark and to straighten into the shape of an exclamation mark meant considerable and sustained pain.

But that was love for you, or something like it.

She spent a great deal of time dancing with herself, a marvelous hobby for someone of her age and he did not begrudge her merriment and dexterity. Often, in fact, he eavesdropped, wondering to himself, Who is this woman really? and, However did I end up here?

But wasn’t life stuffed with enigmas and mysteries?

The only thing they knew with certainty was that one of them would die first, though they never discussed this looming fact aloud. Death, after all, was to them like bodily functions performed in the bathroom—best left unnoted and undescribed.

Their dog, cuter than Shirley Temple had ever been at her apex, had died years ago, and so now they spent a fair amount of time petting plush toy monkeys and other furry beings. Loneliness could often be a tough beast to shake.

        They both believed in miracles despite all the atrocities occurring daily throughout the planet, and in the end, a miracle is what they received. While she suffered a fatal stroke, his fright brought on a heart attack, and like a bedroom door shut for the final time, the pair passed together, clutched in each other’s’ arms, from this world to that one.