Each evening, Margaret set two plates for dinner—one for her, one for the silence. The chair across remained empty, untouched since Henry’s passing. She spoke aloud anyway, clinking fork to porcelain, pretending. Outside, the world moved on. Inside, time gathered quietly. Her only companion the frozen echo of remembered laughter.
Gerald prided himself on his toast-making ability–golden-brown perfection every time. One fateful morning, however, his toaster had other ideas. The rebellious appliance launched his toast with a woosh straight into the fish tank. Gerald sighed. The goldfish—named Toast—looked up, unimpressed. “Irony,” Gerald muttered, fishing his breakfast out of the water.
The insistence by certain pitiable malcontents that gender is fluid raises an interesting possibility. Why stop at gender? Why shouldn’t age be fluid, too? Be creative. Think outside the calendar. Express your age in dog years. Or parrot years. Cat years? Light years? Why not? Age is only a number.