©2021
‘Wait – you’ll see. This is gonna be great. Better than great. That’s if you agree to help out here.’
‘I’m not interested, in the least, in your most wonderfully great and latest scheme.’, she replied, arching her eyebrow.
‘And why do you always do this to me? Always. You take off – are gone for days, sometimes a text – sometimes a voice message – and then….’, she was starting to sputter as the anger took hold. ‘And then’, as she whipped the thermos cup away from her body, the hot chocolate hitting the freshly fallen snow and creating little streams, dots and dashes on the fine crystal surfaces. ‘And then, you show up on my doorstep, as if – as if…’
He held up his hand to stop the stream he knew would follow.
‘It’s the smile’, the thought flitted across the headache fault lines that were forming.
‘It’s that fucking smile and the goofy grin, that does it to me.’
‘You never give me a chance to explain. You’re just – you’re just too selfish.’ he asserted.
‘Me!’, she screamed. ‘Me? Me selfish? I give you everything you ask for – I give you money, I give you support – I give you….’, as she caught her breath, her chest now heaving, Í give you – freedom.’
He sat there, on the log at the side of the trail, legs spread, boots splayed.
‘Yes – I do – I give you the one thing you never actually ask for – freedom. And this is how you repay me.’
Her head hanging, she stared down at the snow, lost in her thoughts.
He knew well enough to shut up. He knew well enough to let her have it run its course.
He knew well enough to know, he would, once again, win her over, win her back.
After a few moments – maybe minutes, she raised her head, turned her face to him.
The golden silky frame of hair that graced the beauty of her face, once again, caught in his chest. For a moment – for a minute.
With a look as contrite as he could muster, he said to her softly, ‘You’re right – as you are always right. I am, all that – all those things. But I am that way because I feel an uncontrollable desperation to succeed. To make these ideas, these projects work – to work for me, and to work for you,’ And with the greatest sincerity he could bring to his face, ‘For us.’
And she melted, once again.
With a sniffle and a swipe of her mitten across her nose, she finally looked again at him.
‘You do know there is one constant in all these grand ideas, don’t you? One constant flaw that will forever prevent you from bringing the realization of any of these ideas to me, to us?’
Sheepishly, he looked up and over at her.
‘And what – what might that be?’ he asked somewhat belligerently.
She sighed, took a deep breath and looked him straight in the eye.
‘You are ceaseless in your efforts, if not permanently misguided. You may, or may not, ever learn that lesson.’
‘Go on’, he said
‘It’s simple – in your cockiness and your arrogance you have never learned this one simple
lesson………Man plans, and God laughs.’
© 2021 michael moore