one more day

Abandoning his pursuit of Happiness in favor of working every day to pay the cable bill, the automo-bill, the apartment bill, the water bill, the sewer bill, and the credit card bill, hard-working area stepbrother Duaight Razmusseon put off his life's true calling for one more day. “If I weren't relaxing on my financed sofa and watching the shows I payed for on the television that I'm still paying off, and if I didn't have to go to bed soon in order to get up before dawn and work my second job, I'd be doing what I love to do, which is to determine and catalog the sonic frequencies of all objects in and around my house.” Duaight arose from the couch and was heading toward the drawer where his notebook and resonating instruments are kept when he veered off at the last minute to grab a box of ice cream. 'I'll do it later,' he told himself while spooning a slow-churned caramel swirl into his gaping pie-hole and staring at the drawer. 'It's just not the right time, I'm kind of tired, and I haven't seen Prometheus since I saw it in theaters.'

Samual Blaisse entered his backyard's shed and immediately began knocking back cheap beers. 'This is the life,' he told himself while peering through the blinds to see if his wife had for some reason come home early, even though he knew she was driving with the kids to her mother's house, two states over. “Yup, yup, yup,” Mr. Blaisse said as he was shuffling around the little space opening and closing various storage compartments. He finished a beer, crushed the can under his foot, and had bent down to pick it up when he noticed a clear box containing an oddly-shaped item. “I've been looking all over for this,” the loyal father of two said, moving an old weed-whacker and a torn shoe box out of the way. He pulled the strange device out and turned it over a few times in his hands, his heart swelling with all the joyful memories he'd learned to associate with it. “Ach,” he said upon remembering his fatherly duties. “I'll play with you another day.” He put away the special thing and reached for another beer, his hand resting for a moment on the clear box, until his supposedly rational thinking process convinced him to go clean the gutters instead of just letting loose and enjoying himself for a few hours.

Slamming the front door to her second-floor apartment in the aftermath of her third lousy date this month, local dental hygienist Annabella Blankenschmied (née Chester) ignored the nagging little voices in her head urging her to vent her emotions through the majesty of song, instead taking on all of the blame for her persistent romantic failure and blinding herself to the fact that the guys she's been dating have been total fucking losers. “You'll never be pretty enough,” Annabella said while looking at herself in the mirror and toweling herself off after twenty minutes on the elliptical machine. She segued into a free-weight-based workout routine but pulled a tendon trying to lift a heavy barbell without the proper leverage. “Damn it!” she screamed aloud in a mixture of pain and frustration, cradling her injured arm and hopping up and down. Ms. Blankenschmied began to relax after she had had a quiet little sit. Her soft, tuneless humming had begun to turn into full-on song when Annabella caught herself thinking a happy thought: “I hung on for one more day; those dumb guys don't matter – I love myself, and that's enough.'

© mentiri factorem fecit (場黑麥)