STAINS
Word Count: 253
It might have been the time I dribbled ice cream on my shirt and you never said a thing about it. Didn’t point it out. I found it later when I undressed. Chocolate dried and stiff.
It could have been the argument about Obama. I should have known to pull back from position and sit and nod with an attentive look. You rolled your eyes at everything I said.
Or when you came to dinner and I’d made chicken marsala and a spice cake with cream cheese frosting. I forgot you said you hated chicken. You didn’t stay for cake. Whatever. I knew you’d be the one to say goodbye.
And now when I run into you on campus, I pick up speed as if I need to get some place. “I’m running late!” I say and let it trail behind me like a banner from an advertising plane. In fact I want to stop and talk. I want to ask you why you left me even though you gave a statement of a generic sort. Something about we didn’t have a lot in common. Well, let me ask: Who else but I has every Woody Allen movie ever made? Who else hates Pirates of the Caribbean movies? Who but you or I read Joyce as breakfast fare?
But no, I’m doing fine and running by you. Lest you see that I have chocolate dribbled on my shirt or notice what you could think were tears in my eyes and still say nothing.
a familiar scene, somehow. i like the play with the POV. in the second part, camera homes in, down to the stains on the shirt, chocolate covered tears, a delicacy in the candy store of lost love stories.
What a lovely way to put it, Marcus! I think it’s a peek at the way most relationships, or at least one in everyone’s life, manages to get shoved off-track, usually by some small point of focus.