Brigit's Flame week two, August 2012

Title: Just Another Day in Paradise
Word Count: 520
Genre: Really Boring fiction
Warnings: Boredom
Author: Urb-banal
Prompt: Inertia



Outside what was between fog and actual rain continued to crank up the green values of the picturesque Stone Haven Retirement Community.  It had been like this for weeks.

Mrs. Toser pushed her knitting to the side and glowered across the room at her husband. He had fallen asleep reading the paper, his head bobbing on his chest. 

The newspaper was slowly sliding off his lap.  It was taking forever to fall. 

"Gawd I hate you!"

"Wha? What?" Mr. Toser was awake and confused.  "Did you say something? I must have fallen asleep. Heh."

"I said, 'I think I might just warm up the left over shepherd's pie tonight'."

"Or we could walk down to the Tim Horton's in town.  They've got a sandwich wrap special on." Mr. Toser was gathering up the paper and sorting through it to find the advertisement.

"Or we could do that." Mrs. Toser rolled her eyes. 

"Well you're the cook! You decide!"

"I had planned on lacing the shepherd's pie with some of that bug spray you picked up for me at Canadian Tire to see if that would kill you..."

"Tim Horton's it is then!" Mr Toser smiled good naturedly, "round about 6:00 p.m.? Right! It's a date darling!"  He shook the paper, read a bit, and in a matter of minutes was once again asleep.  His head fell back on the chair and he began to snore noisily.

"Gawd I hate you."  Mrs. Toser said over her knitting, shaking her head this time.

"Wha? Oh dear, I think I was drooling.  Look at me!" Mr Toser wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "So what time is it? About time to head down to Tim Horton's?"

"I guess." Mrs. Toser pushed herself off the couch and then organized her knitting in the bag at her feet.  She crossed the room, bent and picked up the newspaper, folded it, placed it neatly on the coffee table and helped her portly husband out of his chair.

"Thank you darling. What is it you've been working on for so long, it looks enormous in that bag!"

Pulling on her jacket in the front hall Mrs. Toser looked Mr. Toser in the eye and said. "I'm making myself a rope so I can hang myself off the balcony but it's taking forever.  I don't know if I will ever finish it."

"Sure you will!  Rome wasn't built in a day you know.  Just stick with it."

"Kill me.  Kill me now."

Mr. Toser smiled and patted Mrs. Toser on the arm. "Well, you could order the poutine, that's so full of fat, starch and salt it could stop your heart!"

As they walked down the hill towards the town Mrs. Toser suddenly stopped. "You really do love me don't you? In your own maddening, mindless way, you love me, don't you?"

"Habit I suppose."

"But I'm a horrible person."

"Oh well. Hey look, there's Frank and Martha!  Wait up, we're going to Tim Horton's for the sandwich wrap special, where're you going? How about this rain eh?"

"Gawd, I hate you", Mrs. Toser mumbled.

Author's Note: I really hoped this would be funny. I know it is also disturbing. Old couples are often like that. When you take them out of the romantic gauze society wraps them in, "the golden years, yadda, yadda", the saddest are the old women who are still looking after their decrepit husbands. They sit like roosting hens on a nest of accumulated resentments and slights, hoping to hatch out some degree of vengeance while the old men, finally free of all that testosterone, are as happy as lambs.