An original short story by yours truly.



He is thirty-seven and married. Three-point-five children, manicured lawn, doting wife. Office job. Forty-thousand a year. Coffee maker. Two living rooms. Family-friendly sedan. Golden retriever. When he wakes up, the first thing he steps in is his youngest daughter/son's play-doh.

This is not what he wanted out of life. When he was younger, he had ideas, plans. Astronaut. Firefighter. Rock star. Poet. Artist. Doctor. Veterinarian. The sort of occupation that couldn't be carried out within an 8x8 cubicle that gets smaller every day, no matter how nice the view. When he was younger, his parents led the life that he leads now and he couldn't imagine living the same way. Staying in one place. Eating at one table. Speaking in monosyllabic sentences, usually in statements made questions like the unique speech of foreign English speakers.

History repeats itself. How his parents looked at each other and touched each other is how he and his wife touch each other now. When their hands brush, it's accidental and he is usually the one to jerk his hand away. When they drive together, they stare straight ahead, trusting the hum of the climate control to fill the pauses between their awkward murmurs. When they sleep together, his back faces hers and she holds a pillow instead of him. Neither of them move in the night and in the morning, when she has risen earlier than him, he is just as alone as he was when she was there. At dinner, they sit at opposite sides of the table, smiling at their children but never at each other. He has avoided her stares for so long that he has forgotten what her face looks like. They don't have sex.

He used to call this quiet between them a comfortable silence. A mark of maturity in their twenty year relationship, seventeen year marriage. The fact that they no longer felt the urge to voice every thought and opinion or discuss every event of the day meant, back then, that they had finally grown to the point where such inane conversation was unneccessary. He knows now that the reason for the abrupt pause in conversation is because they've run out of things to say. Every thought and opinion is one that they've had before. Every discussion topic has been picked over until its a carcass not even the golden retriever would look at.

Sometimes, he thinks about leaving. It's always a fleeting thought, but over time, it starts burrowing into his head. Everytime he shoves creamed whatever into his daughter's mouth, he wonders if there's a dimension outside the nine to five. When he looks at his wife in the mirror of their bathroom, he wonders if there are other women. Women who would openly accept his kisses and part their thighs when he lays his hand upon them. He stares out his window at work, wondering if the scenery is real or if it's just a cardboard front. If he were to walk into the world, would he crash into a wall? Or would the road open for him? Was there anything beautiful, mysterious, or exotic behind those rolling hills? He will never know. He has to know. He wants to know.

One night, he leaves to go buy milk. He kisses his toddler daughter and pinches her cheeks, promising her the world though she can't understand him. He ruffles his oldest son's hair, smiling at how he ducks away from his hand as he tries to concentrate on his video game. On his way out the door, his fingers wrap slowly around his keys and he thinks:

This is the last time I'm ever going to buy milk.

This is the last time I'm ever going to see them.

This is the last time I'm ever going to look back.