After sweeping
the crumbs onto the floor, Samuel grabbed yesterday's local paper off the kitchen
counter and departed to his usual spot in his usual seat at the gas station
down the road. There he drinks his coffee with one sweetener and waits to talk
to townies about the weather. "Sure is hot today," they say in the
summer. "Sure is chilly out," they speak between their chapped lips
in the winter months.
From the
backyard, Melanie heard Samuel leave. She had just picked up the chair tipped
over by last night's storm. She sits down in the recliner in front of the TV,
the seat still warm from Samuel's morning in front of the news. This is
Melanie's longest sit of the day. She was sitting in for a morning of daytime
television. The phone rang at the end of a series of commercials, just as her
first soap began, and a telemarketer chatted her right ear until yesterday's
episode recap was over. She politely declined the saleswoman's offer to protect
her home at a discounted rate with a new home security system. Her husband
thought it enough to post a National Rifle Association sticker on the glass
front door and a beware-of-dog sign in the backyard even though they had not
cared for a dog since their son, their only child, moved away to college to
read about the media. That was a lifetime ago.
The end of
Melanie's first soap meant it was time for her medication. "MTWRFSS,"
it read. She popped opened Wednesday. "Hump day," she muttered to
herself. That meant a weekend on the back porch watching the birds she could
not name, save the hummingbird, was drawing near. Melanie found delight in the
rapid flapping of their wings. She once read on the back of a bird feed bag
that hummingbirds live such short lives because their hearts use up all of
their beats trying to keep up with the rapidity of their wings. The opposite
dynamic, the blurb noted, could be observed in turtles.
Melanie sat
entranced by the soap drama until lunch, and she decided on her Wednesday
usual—beans and sauerkraut. Samuel knew it was Wednesday when he smelled the
lingering stench of sour croute. This reminded him that it was not Tuesday,
which his old paper indicated. After Samuel returned from his outing and
registered the invading smell, he found his way to the couch for a nap. Melanie
heard a siren roar by outside, peaked through the blinds, and returned to her
TV seat, and listened to ticking of the grandfather clock. She was already
thinking about dinner. She arose from her chair, shifted through the boxes in the
cabinet, emptied the contents of one, which were all bagged separately. Melanie
did not need the directions on the back, and she threw the box into the trash.
Samuel rose at
the first scent of grease, stretched for the remote, and turned on the TV in
time for the 5:00 news. "Going to be nice tomorrow," he said. Soon
enough dinner was served.
