The Egg by Doug Rice

So much depends on this married couple standing in their kitchen looking out the window at the rain falling on their rose garden. An egg floats in midair between the two of them. Not a real egg. A metaphor. This married couple, however, refuses to stand for anything else. They are real. The salad they are making is real. They both have dreams and hopes and fears. He keeps the yard perfectly manicured in ways that frighten his friends. She buys groceries. She always uses canvas shopping bags. They both have suffered. They both speak barely above a whisper. For years, neither husband nor wife has actually heard what the other has said. Earlier in their relationship one of them heard the other say: What? But that was long ago. Years forgotten. Years that have fled out windows, slipped through doors. Years afraid to stay locked away in this house, this gated community. Now they are too tired. They know too much about each other that they wish they did not know but that they cannot forget.  They do not question each other. They no longer question themselves. He wanders dark alleys during his lunch breaks. She no longer surprises him in his office. She has not returned a phone call in years. Decades. Friends have stopped calling. Her family has forgotten her. Both husband and wife continue to talk to each other. They have always been civil. She remembers lost children. An empty womb. Barren. She does not accuse him. Nor does she accuse his family. He leaves each morning wearing shoes he found in the hall closet. She lingers over her coffee and worries that refined sugar kills.

Doug Rice is the author of the forthcoming Between Appear and Disappear and of Dream Memoirs of A Fabulist. He was the author of Blood of Mugwump, Skin Prayer and  A Good Cu/tboy is Hard to Find.