u/ByfelsDisciple

“I didn’t know I was going to marry you the moment we met, and that’s why you mean so much to me.” I looked up at the cobalt sky. “I don’t even remember the first time we spoke. It doesn’t stand out as special.” Breathing in, I allowed a light smile. “Because what we’ve built has come from what we chose to give to each other, and what we chose to take from one another. No lasting marriage can start from love at first sight. That isn’t authentic. Loving someone is meaningless if it’s based on an image.”

I wrapped my arms around my knees and stared at the grass beneath my feet. “I’ve thought about that every time we hit a rough patch or a dark place. Disney movies only show two people happy together, which is why they run out of story after ninety minutes.” I clenched my jaw. “I want a marriage with resolved conflict written into its DNA, because that makes us real.”

I looked at my watch; it was 7:13 p. m., which meant that I had only a few minutes before sunset. I drew in a deep breath. “I don’t know if you believe me, Caitlin, but I fell more in love with you when you finally opened up about your drinking. I’d known it was a problem for longer than you realize.” I ran my fingertips across the lines in my palm. “I was hurt, of course, and angry – but more in love, because opening yourself up to me while in pain made you vulnerable, made us close, in ways that two people rarely ever share.” I nodded. “People are ugly inside, which is what makes us beautiful. Thank you for sharing that.”

I blinked quickly. “A big part of me thought that I could heal you. The more time that passed, the more I accepted how much I was deluding myself. I didn’t realize how deeply I had been convinced of that lie until the extent of its failure was laid bare before me.” I rocked back and forth, wincing at the crimson streak across the western horizon. “You told me that the only person who could heal you was you, and asked me to have faith. That was hard.” I paused for a few seconds. “It was hard because I love you, and because I love you I accepted it. I had to trust you with my heart and mind, because I had already given too much of those parts of myself to you.” I shrugged. “I had no other choice.”

I took a deep breath and continued. “So I had faith in you take care of yourself. I couldn’t do it for you, and I couldn’t stop loving you, so my world rested on your ability to get better, day by day.” I ran my fingers through the grass. “My life improved as you improved, and my world become unstable when you faltered. But there were more good days than bad, and I healed along with you, even if it was in a different way.” I closed my eyes and smiled. “That’s when I realized what my role was, what my only role could be: I needed to give all of myself to loving you without condition. You needed to know the stakes of failure and the value of success extended to more than just yourself.” I opened my eyes. “The only control that I could offer was the act of giving up control.”

Caitlin and I remained silent together as the sun finally dipped below the horizon. I wanted that silence to stretch on longer, but I’d gotten better at accepting what I couldn’t control.

At least I thought I had.

I turned to face her. “I came up to find you today because I finally found all the words that I needed to say.”

I leaned forward and kissed the granite marker embedded in the grass.

“But a dark thought got there first.”

I stood and walked to the exit, alone in the dying sun.

“I never thought I’d spend twenty-seven dollars for avocado toast. But then again, I never thought I’d taste something so sublime!”

I chuckled as Hank took a big bite of his breakfast, green chunks squeezing between the gaps in his teeth.

“Tell me,” Hank continued through a sloshy mouthful, “what am I tasting? I get the beautiful sea salt, olive oil, lemon, and the touch of feta with cherry tomato.” He swallowed and licked his lips, leaving a verdant lump on the edge of his mustache. “But ever since you opened Catarrh, I’ve been introduced to a je ne sais quoi flavor that I’ve never before experienced.” He wiped his mouth, smearing the slimy avocado across his cheek and white sleeve. A tiny blob jiggled from one solitary, extra-long nose hair. “What’s your secret?”

“Tender Love,” I answered with a wink. Hank, his wife, and I laughed heartily before I turned away to greet the other customers. It’s important for me to touch every table – the restaurant business is cutthroat.

After the breakfast rush died down, I headed to the back room for a much-needed breather. My spirits lifted every time I passed the L. A. Eater award hanging from the wall, which was followed by several different newspaper clippings proclaiming Catarrh to be “Highland Park’s single best breakfast spot.” I smiled.

After slipping into the back room, I quietly locked the door behind me. “Hello, Tender Love.”

The abomination hung, nude, from the brick wall. Its arms and legs were splayed wide, anchored in place with iron chains. One eye – the big one – locked on me, while its cartoonishly undersized twin stared at the ceiling. Snot poured freely from its flat nostril onto a tongue far too large to fit into its mouth. I knew that the thing could hear me to some degree, but its ears sat asymmetrically as though a sadistic preschooler had gone rogue on Mr. Potato Head. It wiggled its nineteen fingers and thirteen toes in a feeble attempt to resist its bonds, but could not budge beyond that. The effort caused its nipples – tiny in circumference, yet six inches long as though someone had oversqueezed a toothpaste tube – to gyrate softly. A tiny, unholy foot protruded from its sternum like a fetus in fetu was kicking its way out. Beneath the solitary lightbulb, the creature’s sweaty skin shimmered with a culinary green glow.

“Kill me,” it begged before vomiting a torrent of phlegm and bile.

I smiled and shook my head as the thing trembled unendingly. “You keep asking, and I keep shooting you down,” I answered with a shrug. “You know how important you are.”

Then I grabbed a stool and Pa’s milking bucket before sitting down in front of the abomination. “Hold still.”

The creature tensed as I reached between its legs and pressed upward, finding the hole and slipping my finger three knuckles deep inside. I could tell by the heat alone that it was time for a release. “Come on, now,” I coaxed, “I know you want to get this out.”

It moaned before finally relenting. I yanked out my finger and moved the bucket into place just in time.

A green torrent blasted into the milkin’ bucket like a rocket headed for the moon. I marveled as the stream steadily reached and then eclipsed the halfway point, filling the receptacle so full that I struggled to hold its weight. After a full minute of discharge, the avalanche finally slowed to a trickle before ending with one, final plop of a verdant blob.

“Amazing,” I whispered. “It looks just like avocado.”

The creature’s eye rolled down toward me in sadness and shame as I placed the bucket gingerly aside.

“Why do I keep you alive?” I offered. Then I reached back up between its legs, now red-hot and very slimy, before finding the hole once more. I ran my index finger once around the perimeter before sliding it back out and popping it into my mouth. With a satisfied sigh, I sucked my fingertip clean.

“Because,” I answered in a dreamy voice, “the residue in your cloaca tastes exactly like beautiful sea salt.”

“Witches aren’t real.”

I ignored the man’s babbling as I tightened the ropes around his wrist.

“I’m telling you,” he grunted while straining fruitlessly against his bonds, “I’ve been searching for months and have found nothing!”

I stepped back and rested my palms on my hips, admiring my handiwork. “Finished,” I announced with a feeling of satisfaction. Finally, I turned toward his face, weighing the man’s words. “You found nothing, but that didn’t keep you from making nineteen different accusations, did it?” I stepped closer. “And what are you going to tell the families of the thirteen falsely accused who took the quick exit from the gallows?”

A bead of sweat rolled down his forehead as he continued to struggle. “I had to find out,” he huffed. “Now I can say for certain that their concerns were ill-founded. It’s time to put an end to this! Let me go!”

I folded my arms. “You’re saying that a blood sacrifice is sometimes necessary for the greater good of society?”

“Only in the most extreme circumstances,” he answered, gritting his teeth. “You need to understand that what’s practical often runs counter to our emotions. Now stop being emotional and release me from these bonds!”

I remained still, watching him fidget. “You’re right.”

He stared at me, now unmoving, with a glint of hope dawning in his eyes.

“The silliness of your hunt will convince reasonable, practical people that only a fool such as yourself would ever believe that witches have ever existed. That conviction will prevent all future witch hunts – not due to any trepidation of being wrong, which people happily accept, but from a fear of looking foolish. Most people would rather hurt themselves than look like an idiot.”

“Wonderful. If you’ll just untie me now, we can tell people to put this out of mind.”

“Hmmm?” I blinked. “Oh, you misunderstand. I want everyone to talk about this. Your idea is brilliant, even if you stumbled upon it through stupidity.” I folded my hands. “Hiding is a path to survival. But standing in the spotlight? Mr. Schnelling, that is a way to thrive.”

He tried to form sentences, but only babbled.

“Just imagine! Anyone who hears of this place will think of it as the home of falsely accused witches. No one will ever again take the concern seriously! Now the ideas are coming fast. If this place has a reputation for the ridiculous, there will be tourists. I could run a bed and breakfast!”

The man’s eyes looked ready to bulge out of his head.

“See, I’ve decided that I’m tired of hiding. I’m tired of running. I sailed across an ocean to a completely foreign and wild place just to get away from the accusations, but they followed me immediately.” I looked up at the red, orange, and yellow leaves. “Yet I’ve decided that I like New England. I could see myself staying here for a few hundred years.” I turned my gaze back toward the man. “But I’ll need both employment and protection. Despite your best efforts, you’ve just provided me with both.”

His jaw trembled. “You must release me now,” he whispered. “If you don’t, your punishment will be catastrophic. These plans of which you speak will never come to fruition if you’re found to be a murderer.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Me? Oh, no, I don’t think so. See, I’ll just tell everyone that you were a witch.”

We locked eyes for a frozen moment, neither of us saying a word.

Then I snapped my fingers, and the man erupted in flames.