Sean Daly – Fiction

First Things First

 

For me, I try my best to get along. I don’t want drama. Even if I’m constipated which happens. It’s uncomfortable to talk about but it happens sometimes. This morning feels like an eternity since I went. I think I’m good to go….then… ahem… then the sensation is followed by nothing.  But today it will happen soon enough, I tell myself, for sure, you got this one.

Now I’m at a Costco parking lot.

“Are you okay?” my girlfriend says.  She knows there’s a problem.  Even though I’ve remained silent about the whole matter.

“I’m okay, why?”

“You look distressed.”

“Nah.”

The morning is all light, no heat. I always go in morning like clockwork, so I’m kind’a heartbroken if you want to know the truth, but it doesn’t stop me from getting out of the car and trudging to the entrance.

“Do you have the list?” she asks.

I fumble in my pocket. Everyone moves in a general malaise. Get this, my girlfriend stops by a reverse osmosis system and becomes immersed by it. By water. Fascinated by water, which is a good thing in its own right. Clean water can help. I’ll admit it. I’m not crazy.

But, I say.

“Let’s just stick to our list, Hun.”

Then my girlfriend recites it without looking. “Tri-tip, lettuce, rice.”  She’s memorized it even though she just asked me for it.

“We agreed to stick to the list.” None of which is conducive to movement, I’ll agree, still I want to get the items for the BBQ and split. I reach for my pocket again, but my hand stops over my gut as if it were a magic wand.

“We could use a water system?” Her voice is all heat, no light.

“I dunno” I say.

I wait.

Hmmmm,

but I say nothing more.

No follow up from her, either.

Nada.

“So were getting one now?” I say after a spell. As a matter of point, I catch myself observing the water moving through the charcoaled system, one cylinder to another, and it looks beneficial in all candor. It really does.

I grab her hand. I want to move along and get what we came here for. “What’s wrong with our water, anyways?” I say tugging at her, playfully.

“Chemotherapy, pesticides, heavy metals.”

Talk about nails on a chalk board.

And the entire store is populated with anonymous faces which is neither here nor there.

But she shakes off my grip – miffed.   She walks away – borderline fuming – the way she does. I pursue her while doing a quick inventory of the food I’ve eaten in the last 24 hours.  Then I review the list she’s memorized, the one rummaged for in my pocket. My girlfriend stops, again. Hands on her hips.

“So we can’t even entertain other things we might need?”

I hesitate. My thinking is this: sure we can babe after, but only after, I  go. I got to move my bowels, you have no idea, but no words come out.

No explanation in my defense, whatsoever.

Not a word.

Nothing at all.

 

 

Sean Daly