On My Day Off I was getting my hair cut when my wife, a midwife, called. I let it go to voicemail. In the voicemail she said, “You have an envelope waiting for you at home.” She said she was afraid, said she didn’t like how it felt in her hands. I told her to please place it on the table before leaving for work. My wife worked nights. “I’ll be home in a bit.”
//
I paid the barber in good bread and silence: the same amount since I first started seeing him nineteen years ago. Almost two decades of haircuts and we’d never said a word to each other. I hoped to never know his name, considered him to be one of my best friends. The earth spins just fine sometimes.
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After my hair cut, I walked to my car down the street and noticed a struggling veteran with handfuls of roses that sat in a bucket of juice. He held a sign that said, Free Hugs But Not Free Flowers. I bought a dozen reds and hugged the man twice. Twelve flowers to bring home for my wife.
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Our divorced friends used to come over for dinner and couldn’t believe that my wife and I were still together. They rolled their wedding rings down our hallway and laughed at me as I chased after the gold in hurried silence, thinking about how my uncle once placed his wedding ring into the church basket’s offering. He called it his contribution. He called it his shed.
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On the car ride home from my hair cut, I saw a wolf fighting both a man and a dog. Two against one. I stopped my car and offered to help. I recognized the man from fencing. The wolf was really aggressive. I had a sword in the trunk of my car. “Brand new thing!” I shouted at the man. I was still trying to find ways to use my sword ever since buying it a few months prior. My wife didn’t understand the purchase. Asked its expiration date. The man yelled, “Go on, get the hell out of here! This is between me, my dog, and this wolf! Don’t bring swords into a personal matter!” The man’s leg was bleeding pretty bad. I noticed a dead owl in the front yard. Sitting still to the side of their battle. Its eyes open wide. Was it their prize? Like always, I didn’t ask questions. Like always, I said nothing. I got back in my car and kept driving.
//
By the time I arrived home, I’d forgotten all about the envelope described by my wife while I was getting my hair cut for some bread and some silence. The letter was the first thing I noticed when I walked inside. It was on the table as I’d asked, and it sat next to a burning candle, one I’d never seen, one that dripped with wax a bit too freely. The power was out, the place more silent than a mime fight. Usually my wife left music playing for me. An entrance song. Smooth jazz. “Honey?” She was probably already at work. An acclaimed midwife who used to be a nurse. “Honey?” I heard nothing. For the first time all day, I cleaned my glasses. “Honey?” I placed her flowers in a vase and opened the letter with my sword, something to be read slowly by candlelight, something to close out my only day off in months.
Benjamin Niespodziany is a night librarian at the University of Chicago. He runs the multimedia art blog [neonpajamas] and has had work published in Pithead Chapel, Cheap Pop, HOOT Review, Ghost City Press, and a handful of others.
Lost Balloon 