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You’re not picking up. Of the dozen simple explanations for your rudeness, I select: you’ve died. That you could be that cruel. One blink later I wonder if you ever lived, whether in fact any of us exist or existed. We’re just so much empty space for so little stuff, like a smell in the wind. Walk into the Astrodome with hot water and a teabag. Yes I’m going somewhere with this. Set the water on a rail, dunk the teabag once, squeeze it dry, and take it when you leave. Later, under that dome, I smell something I can’t place, a tea as weak as the breeze we make walking through someone’s life, but which is all I know of you, but which I say I recognize. Cobwebs of scent. So how do you hurt me so effortlessly? You’re probably shopping or walking the dog or napping with the covers pulled up and the phone off. I’d like to be there. Or do you know it’s me and you’re dodging The Conversation? At the atomic level, we don’t touch, and it’s not skin we feel. The particles aren’t reliably anywhere. The haze at your perimeter repels the haze at mine, and the bending we feel, of our own skins, measures the resistance we face. It’s no surprise we have to slap each other to get a reaction. How much closer do I dare get to the woman I love before you disperse into motes of dust? Already if I look too long, the parts of you I recognize go neutral. An inch too near and we cease to be. I promise if you answer the phone I’ll never question what makes us want to share rooms. Oh there you are. It’s me. Just wanted to hear your voice.
Original Copyright © January 21, 2007
Revised Copyright © January 27, 2026
When the genie offers me three wishes, I’ll ask for gratitude. Let others squander my leftover wishes to fund their dreams or fix the world any way they like. As the one who cherishes whatever I may have, I’ll want for nothing and be immune to both the greed of others and their good intentions. This tepid bowl of chili won’t need sour cream, chopped red onion, fiery peppers, or shredded cheese once the genie has seasoned not it but me. And neither will I be deficient to myself. Already, darling, you and I own more than most humans have ever owned, and eat better, and savor it less. Even this mundane chili is richly exotic in most places on earth at any time other than ours. It’s we who fail the chili if it’s lacking. Taste it again more thoughtfully. Be the spice. You’re welcome. I may not be the ideal partner or even the ideal chef, but, for each other, if for no one else, we could both be. Of course, the genie will have the last laugh. Between the rubbings of the lamp, she has a thousand years to solve the riddle of every desire. However crafty my wish may seem—to live in pure appreciation—she’ll grant it only technically, as everyone knows, grant but not grant it. She could, for example, punish me for neglecting to protect what I already have. And I would surely suffer without your gratitude for my chili, if you catch my drift. It’s worth a second wish. Already I’m like an astronaut too long from home whose most exotic fantasy is lying beside you in our own bed whenever we’re not. If you felt that way about me, too, my first two wishes would do the work of three.
Very Short Novels 