Unrequited

I'm a bit behind on my blogging, but I'm hoping to get back to it soon.  Blame it on the strange illness I fought off this past holiday weekend.

In the meantime, I present a post from a few weeks ago, featuring a sample of my story, "Unrequited."


It was our seconddate when the world ended.            Thiswas someone's basement once.  There's awasher and a dryer down here and if the power were still working I'm sure wecould use them.  The fact that the showerupstairs worked was blessing enough.  Myclothes might not be clean, but at least my skin smells better.            Sophybrought a few things down from the bathroom. She found a compact.  She foundsome make up.  It's still light outenough for her to put it on.  She's justkind of sitting there, compact in one hand, eyeliner in the other.  I'd be flattered if I thought she was actuallydoing it for my benefit.  She's not.  She's doing it for her own.            Ibrought a few things down from the kitchen. I found a really big knife, the kind they only sell on the Home ShoppingNetwork.  I found some canned goods thatcan be eaten raw.  I found some bottledwater.            Isearched every inch of this house and every inch of the garage and the shed outin the yard and I didn't find a shotgun or a hand gun or anything that could beconsidered a fire arm.  In the moviesthey always find a gun somehow.  In themovies they always know how to use it.            Iknow she'd rather be sleeping upstairs in one of the beds.  But I feel like the rooms are too shut offwith only one exit route.  The basementhas a door to the upstairs and a door to the back yard.  The floor is concrete and the walls arecinder blocks.  I feel secure down here.            There'sa small window, the kind made from a really thick block of glass.  I can see the swing set in the backyard.  I can see the sand box.
            Iremember when internet dating was a joke.            Idon't know when it happened, but at some point meeting people online became trendy.  I guess the ability to screen people wasappealing.  You could literally type inthe kind of person you wanted to meet and the computer would spit out results.  It was like natural selection with photos.            That'show I met Sophy.            Ithink most people have a list of traits that they look for in a significantother.  And I think most people are smartenough to realize that they'll never find someone with every single one ofthose traits.  To a certain extent, weall know that we're going to have to settle. You trade wit for kindness.  Youtrade taste in movies for taste in music. You trade intelligence for looks. Everyone knows that this is how it works and everyone knows thateveryone else does it.  You have tosacrifice to survive.            Ididn't feel like I was settling with Sophy.            Thisholds true for meeting people online.  Goahead and do a search for someone who has the exact same favorite movie asyou.  I can guarantee that they won'tlike the same music.  Do a search forsomeone with a post-graduate degree. Chances are good that they'll be dull as dirt.  When the facts are laid out and pixilated onthe screen twenty inches in front of your face, you learn to pick andchoose.  You learn to prioritize.            Itwasn't like that with Sophy.  She likedthe best movies.  She valued wit.  She enjoyed getting drunk.  She was nearly as aimless as me and just afew months younger.  There wasn't asingle trade to be made.  I didn't haveto pick and choose.  Everything lined upthe way I wanted.            Andthen, of course, there were the pictures. As online dating had gotten more popular, more and more attractivepeople were actually using it.  I'm sureinitially it was the last resort for the homely and misanthropic, but it turnedinto a veritable potpourri of beautiful people. No matter what your type might be, you were bound to find someone tomatch it.  The problem, of course, isthat everyone knew this.            Youget a lot of glamour shots, pictures that seemed to have been takenspecifically for the purpose of having a great online profile.  You get a lot of action shots, pictures ofpeople doing something "cool" with their friends.  Those are actually kind of intimidatingbecause you're getting a glimpse of that person's entire life in onephoto.  It's a world that seems foreignand complete and not a world that needs you in any way.  You also get a lot of artsy shots, created tobe mysterious and appealing when, in reality, they're just annoying.            Sophywas different.            Ifound her by doing a search for favorite movie. We were a match.  Her picture wascandid enough (and cute enough) for me to think she had potential, so I clickedon her name to view her profile.  Notonly did we like the same movies, we liked the same music, too.  It seemed to me that I had every single oneof the qualities that she looked for in a person.  It seemed to me that her hobbies paralleledmy own.            Withina few minutes of reading her profile, I'd already fallen for her.
            Wemanaged to slide a mattress down the stairs and we took sheets and comfortersfrom the linen closet.  It felt weird totake them off the beds.  The mattress wasone thing.  Sheets made what we weredoing seem too real.            Nighttime is always the hardest.  I watch asthe last light from the sun fades away. Sophy crawls on to the mattress and pulls the sheets up around her.  I look at my watch.  It's only 6:30.  I wonder howmuch longer the battery will last in this thing.  I suppose at some point time will cease toexist.            Wesleep in four hour shifts.  I know itdoesn't sound like we're getting a whole lot of rest, but it's not as if eitherof us is getting any quality sleep. You're half awake the whole time, anyway.  Part of you doesn't think you'll wake up.            Therewas one point when we felt comfortable lying next to each other.  I think we preferred it.  It was a way for us to stay warm.  I liked to think it was comforting, that Iwas just as comforting to her as she was to me. But we've been pretty scared lately, too scared to be lying down at thesame time.            "Ifeel like we're buried," she says as she rolls over on to her side.  She always starts off on her side.  At some point she'll end up on her back.  Gently, casually, and sound asleep, she'llroll on to her back, no longer curled up in the fetal position, open andaccepting of the world around her.  Ithappens that way every night.  It'salmost graceful.            I'vewatched her sleep every night for a week now.            Ilook back out the window.  The sun isgoing down and the last bit of light is starting to form shadows anywhere itcan.  I try not to let my mind fool me.  I've got enough to worry about withoutimaging things.Those trees in thedistance are just trees.  They're notmoving.  They're not headed this way.            Ialmost wish they were.

The rest of Unrequited can be found as a 99 cent eBook, available on iTunes, for the Nook, and for the Kindle, as well as pretty much any other eReader or Tablet. Unrequited can also be found in print, as part of the short story collection, Unrequited and Other Stories .