Dinner With a Side of Everlasting Happiness – by GRACE BLACK

Dinner with a Side of Everlasting Happiness

Sticking my hand down the garbage disposal is something I almost never do. In fact, I never do. Maybe, it’s the visions of sheer horror that play out in my mind. Bloody nubs emerging from the black hole just to retrieve a wedding ring. Is it worth it? I ask myself.

The item of promise lies in the belly of the disposal, a trinket. And I stare. A wet noodle from last night’s uncleaned pasta plate clings to my ring finger instead, and I almost laugh. Leftover congealed weight to signify a union.

Yes, I realize there is a switch, and that if the switch is off then logically bloodied nubs could only be the result of a B-rate horror flick in action, or an overactive imagination. Basically, the probability is extremely low that this could happen. Therefore, it’s not logical. But nothing’s logical anymore. Up is down, and down is left of lost.

You were on top of me just last week pressing, rutting around like, “Tell me where you want it, baby.” I pretended to not hear you just like you pretend not to see the dishes that pile up—day after day. You came in record time and decided I’d like to be showered with your seed on my thigh. You never were very creative.

We didn’t kiss. Or exchange loving glances or any other words. I didn’t have an orgasm nor did I have the energy to fake it. You fell asleep in less than two minutes, and I watched you. Honestly watched. Studied you. The slope of your jaw, the concave orbital eye area and how it seemed more sunken now, like supple plums close to rotting. Your trinket firmly in place, a yellow-gold symbol of our everlasting happiness.

I stare at the noodle that has chosen my finger without accompanying vows, turn on the faucet, and flip the switch for the disposal. There is a resonance to the metal as it’s forced against the stationary grinding ring at the bottom of the black hole. Church bells pealed twenty-five years ago; now, it’s tintinnabulation as I peel the carrots for our dinner.

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Grace Black is just another writer wearing down lead and running out of ink, one line at a time. Coffee refuels her when sleep has not been kind. She writes poetry and flash fiction and prefers them both like her coffee—dark. She is an editor at Flash Fiction Magazine, and has been published in various journals and anthologies online and in print. Find her on Twitter @blackinkpinkdsk