10 Written by Thomas Miller

    The meteors have begun in earnest, silently slashing across the sky.  Only a handful a minute, but they’re coming.  Thirty-one, thirty-two Bruce counts to himself.
    “Dap’s still got it bad for her,” Georgeanne says.
    “He’s coping,” says Bruce.  “He’s seeing other people.  He’s happy.”
    “What is it about her?” asks Georgeanne.
    “She’s scrappy,” says Bruce.  “Like your best friend’s hot kid sister.”
    “I never had the hots for my best friend’s kid sister,” says Georgeanne.  “That’s not it, though.  Guys think they’re falling for her because she’s funny.  And she’s not even funny, she’s sad.  Men only want a funny woman until ooh, there’s one!”
    “Why do?”
    But Bruce is cut short as a huge figure catapults itself past them, bellowing out a Tarzan scream, pounding down the beach toward a weary band of people heading toward the parking lot.  Blix harassing the student astronomers.  The group scatters, whooping back.
    “How would you kill me?” asks Bruce.
    “What?” asks Georgeanne.
    “How would you kill me?  You said before you’d kill me.”
    “I don’t like that question,” she says.  They hear a series of small splashes followed by a big one and loud braying like a bull moose in mating season.
    “I’d let you freeze to death,” Georgeanne says.
    “They find me too soon, you’d have to treat for hypothermia,” says Bruce.  “Warm me up.”
    “Eew,” she says.  They hear wet smacks coming from the ocean someone slapping at the water with open palms.  “Hypothermia’s the naked in a sleeping bag cure, isn’t it?” says Georgeanne.  “I’d let Blix warm you up.  Blix and his enormous wang.  Or Feeney.  You’d like that, wouldn’t you?  Naked in a sleeping bag with Fee-Fee after all these years.”
    “With both of you,” says Bruce.
    “Eew.  I love you, hon, but I am not getting naked in a sleeping bag with you and her.”
    “I love you, too,” says Bruce, his voice going all olive drab.
    “You are not allowed to say that.”
    “You just did.”
    “You’re not allowed to say it like that.”  Overhead another meteor streaks and fades.  Forty-one.  The wind kicks up a little, and Bruce squints against the swirl of icy grit that spiders across his face.  Even the grains of sand are cold.  They suck the heat from his cheeks.
    “How long has this been going on?” whispers Georgeanne.
    “When you said you’d rather be dead than sleep alone on Valentine’s Day and I volunteered?” 
    “That’s like two years ago.  And you were kidding.”
    “I was.  Also, I was serious.”

Posted on February 9th, 2009 in Fiction