Thanks to Alistair for providing the prompt to this week’s Sunday Photo Fiction.

Romance Is Dead

“Let’s take a dinner cruise. You’ll love it,” he said.

I’m fairly certain that dinner, cruise, and love should not be in the same sentence. I’m especially thinking this on the night of my eleventh anniversary as I retch violently into a tiny toilet while my husband, soon-to-be-ex, I think, stands outside the door asking at intervals: “Are you okay?”

“If I were okay, do you think I’d be being sick?” Ah, even the linguistic philosopher pacing outside the door has no answer for this.

I rinse my mouth, stare at my pale face in the mirror, and the sudden appearance of lines around my eyes and dark circles. In the space of an hour, I’ve aged, thanks to swells on a tidal river.

When I emerge, he immediately enfolds me in his arms.

“Not the way I planned this would go,” he says. “Next time I’ll listen.”

That would be one for the books.

As I drink a Dark and Stormy to settle my stomach, he slides an envelope to me. I cringe as I open it. A gift certificate for a vacuum cleaner.

“You old romantic you,” I say.

end 10/21/2017

Sascha Darlington