sparks
The shed had never been his favorite. A trendy place to store the wedding trellis and a few forgotten boxes. Leora hated it when he referred to it as the shed. “Guest house,” she would correct him as if to subconsciously plant the intention for her remodeling endeavors. The shed never was converted though and the only guests it ever hosted were thirteen barrels of gasoline which were currently in flames.
Jai pulled a cigarette from his pocket as Leora threw him a raised eyebrow.
“What? They’re already on fire.”
She tossed a short nod and then followed with, “Give me one.”
Together they’d become a tycoon. Their marriage made sense, an intelligent symbol of their powerful business partnership. Two single children, descendants of wealthy households. They had felt unstoppable; there was nothing that was out of their reach. But they had wanted to do it right, to do it their way. They fell in love with each other’s stubbornness and determination to create from unexpected means. Their impassioned discussions over the next line of attack on their thriving business front kept them up well into the night, bottles of bourbon and pots of coffee drained as they shared in ping pong matches of table ideas. But lately, it hadn’t been enough. Conversations lulled and the pull forward for each individual appeared to be towards opposite ends. Before they had realized it, they had burned through the development stage and unintentionally business planned their divorce.
And now their shed was on fire. No one had thought it a particularly good idea to store the gasoline in there, but at the time it had nowhere else to go. With gas prices floundering into quite literally negative amounts due to the pressing pandemic, the two had seized the opportunity to prepare for additional business advancements that they could push ahead. Hence the thirteen rogue gasoline barrels now ablaze in their backyard.
“Well, at least they were cheap.”
They watched as sparks danced violently like fireflies before them; the sounds of sirens in the distance.
“I never loved you,” she exhaled, not taking her eyes off of the shed.
“I know, I never loved you either. But I loved us.”
Two puffs of cigarette smoke were shot into the air as their eyes remained fixated on the flames.
“I loved us too.”
And in the midnight, amber glow from their burning shed, two hands found each other as they watched their chapter die.
-b
April 22, 2020