The Thing Is
The Thing Is He’d fallen out of love with his wife. His wife saw that he seemed to favor his stethoscope, the way it tickled his ears. Ears plugged with earpieces that stopped her questions full of words. Words dissolving like cotton candy in the mouth. The mouth having mulled over the word love. Love was the very thing he no longer felt for her but it wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t her fault, so he would be careful not to hurt her on his way out. His way out included keeping the bad news from her for a while longer by sprinkling the word in conversation ─he loved her new perfume, loved the new haircut, loved her new stilettos (which he actually did love). Love became a syllable that stopped meaning what it had once meant, and he thought she might not notice. Notice she did, however, and the feeling each one took for granted in the other did not take either so. So, holding the stethoscope to her husband’s heart, she tried to understand what it wanted. It wanted, p...