Sawtooth

Sawtooth

- Karen Schauber -

He waves at me with that sawtooth smile and halloumi complexion, and I swoon just like the last time (last guy). My bus leaving in ten, but I jump up and squeeze past the bulky woman seated next to me, her closed-loop reusable plastic bag bulging with a thick baton of Hungarian salami, fragrant spicy olives and pungent Bryndza, Limburger, and Epoisses cheeses—she mentions meeting her beau for a picnic by the lake, him bringing the libation and the worsted wool blanket—as I zoom to the front of the bus begging the driver to let me off, and I don’t even want a refund, I just need to get off. Hiram is perplexed but willing to indulge as I force his arms open for the hug of a century, I’m squeezing so hard he issues a little cough, but I don’t let go because I think I’ve found what I’ve always been looking for and realize that I can make the Carpathian Mountains my home after all. I’ll learn to sew pretty embroidered blouses and sell them at the market, cook on a cast-iron wood stove, and who needs a Dyson anyways when sorghum grasses can work just fine to rid an earthen floor of dust. And I’ve always loved animals of all kinds, loved visiting zoos in every major city I’ve travelled to, waited in line in the oppressive heat, my tortoise shell glasses slipping down my nose and my morning’s blow-out frizzing up, to tether a slip of lettuce to a giraffe, its long neck billowing, while its thick black tongue darts in and out reaching for the tasty morsel. Happy to share my salon with a few naked-neck Turken yielding enormous fresh dark brown eggs, and in colder weather transform my dwelling into a byre, pushing aside the sofa to accommodate a bearded goat or two. And I’m banking that I can finally let loose my zaftig pudge that I keep in check huffing and puffing on the dreadmill 5-days-a-week and that freeloading guys who are married to their gym regimen and their online gaming bros will become a thing of the past. … Hiram is gripping me firm by the shoulders looking stern, not delighted, or loving as I expected, his big mitts bracing me or him I’m not sure, but I am so full of effervescence I can see he sees the potential… and that this mail-order bride might just work out.

Karen Schauber’s flash fiction appears in 100 international journals, magazines, and anthologies with nominations for Pushcart, Best Small Fictions, Best Microfiction, and Wigleaf Top 50. She is Editor of the award-winning flash fiction anthology The Group of Seven Reimagined: Contemporary Stories Inspired by Historic Canadian Paintings (Heritage House, 2019), curates Vancouver Flash Fiction, and is a seasoned family therapist.  Read her at: https://KarenSchauberCreative.weebly.com