101 Words

I slowly open my stinging eyes, tears streaming.

Behind me someone speaks—a mumbled locution of awe. I want to shout at them, to tell them to shut the hell up. But I don’t think my voice will work.

The first thing I see is red. Lots of it. I think of love, of blood, of death. Three things that await me here. I’m in love with this place already.

Two years later I develop a blood abnormality. Kidney failure. Probably because of where we are. I could go home. I don’t.

I become the first man to die on Mars.

She wasn’t called Dizzy Lizzie for nothing. Some said she couldn’t organize a tea party in her own vicarage.

So when the news broke that she had given a ‘Congratulations’ card to Mrs. Quinn next door following the sudden passing of Mr. Quinn, nobody was surprised.

Only Lizzie, who spent her spare time gardening and listening to the rows, knew how Mr. Quinn had fallen from his ladder.

Lizzie’s own downfall was to suggest that Mrs. Quinn’s sins would be forgiven on payment of a suitable monetary donation.

Instead, Mrs. Quinn found a new home for Lizzie in her own graveyard.

On June 26, 2015, the United States Supreme Court ruled same-sex marriage legal across the nation. Opponents claimed it would incite God’s judgment. They predicted earthquakes and flooding and swarms of insects.

Surprisingly, they were correct.

About everything.

Literally.

Every. Single. Thing.

(Even the fucking bugs.)

Twenty-some years later, Jillian and I stand in what’s left of her sister’s backyard. Rings exchanged. Hearts combined. Wedding dresses drenched.

“I do,” I whisper and flick away a wayward locust so I can lift her veil.

She smiles and everything was worth it.

Every. Single. Thing.

Our friends cheer. I kiss my beautiful bride.

Fists clenched, fly unzipped, the demon robbed you of your ability to be loved.

Then, we met. You tried to bare your soul to me, but the what-ifs became too much. You couldn’t bear the terror of happily ever after. Surely, I would hurt you, like he did.

My love became an errant spark that danced above your cauldron full of fuel. Old protective instincts kicked in. To escape the explosion, you needed to erase me.

I forgave you instantly.

As for the demon father—imprisoned—I hope his misery is such that all he can do is pray for death.

Cinnamon. The spice caught at the back of her throat, not an altogether unpleasant sensation. It rolled through her nostrils, settling on the tiniest buds of her tongue.

Suddenly, she was seven years old standing on a chair, wrapped in a flour-flecked apron. The late afternoon light streaming through the window catching stray hairs falling out of her ponytail to frame her face with strands shining like spun gold.

“Charlotte?”

She pulled herself out of her silent reverie as the barista called her name a second time. She reached for her cinnamon latte and walked out into the late afternoon light.

Tea steeps for three minutes before the fortune-teller hands the porcelain Zodiac cup to my wife. She takes two gulps, leaving a mouthful in the bottom with the leaves. Holding the cup in her left hand, she swirls it three times and passes it back.

Her eyes flick to me. We’ve been here before with gynecologists, shamans, faith healers, tarot readers, and psychics. None have given the right answer.

She needs someone to say the two of us can become three. Since doctors said it was impossible, I can’t form those words for her.

She leans in and the reading begins.