“So, your idea is, we let them keep the pen, huh? I don’t see how that helps us.”

“Really? You don’t see it?”

“No. It seems to me they use it until it runs out, or they lose it. Either way I don’t see it making it through to next tax time; at least not without ending up in the bottom of some drawer somewhere; out of sight, out of mind.”

“But that’s where you’re not seeing it. Look at this pen for a minute.”

“I can see it just fine right here.”

“Pretty nice, isn’t it?”

“Not really. I’ve got tons better pens than that.”

“Ah, but that’s you. To you it may be just average. But somebody like you probably hasn’t so much as touched a stick ballpoint in years. Trust me, to most people this is a step up. It’s not a pen they want to lose. By the end of the year, they’ll almost feel bad if they don’t come here, without really knowing why. ‘This is stupid,’ they’ll say, but they’ll end up coming here anyway. When the critical moment of choice arrives, they won’t be able to think of anywhere else off the top of their heads. That’s the power of our brand.”

J de Salvo is the editor of the Bicycle Review. His stories and poetry have appeared in a kajillion little magazines, and his articles have been published on the front pages of independent newspapers for ridiculously low rates. He is a native of Los Angeles, and now lives in Oakland, CA.

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.

First Stop Fiction is currently seeking submissions. We will begin publishing a very short story every Thursday when we are confident we can do so for the foreseeable future.