So my wife Peggy and I were arguing one day. Now, we don't normally fight – we're actually pretty happily married – but apparently I had forgotten to take out the trash from the bathroom garbage can, even though it was half-full still, but she doesn't want her dirty used tampons to sit around in case we have guests – even though we never have guests.
So we were fighting about it and she was like, “Reginald, you worthless, good-for-nothing shit! You never do anything right, ever! Even when you think you've done something correctly, you actually haven't!”
“Well, I'm sorry, Peggy, that I'm not some perfect little model husband who went to husband school and graduated Magna Cum Laude. You should have checked my credentials before you took that ring from me.”
“Wow, I don't know why you're being such a bitch!”
And, I didn't know why she was being such a bitch. To me, it was just a stupid garbage can. Not the culmination of all my failures and shortcomings manifested in one simple mistake. And somehow, even though she had free reign to speak her womanly emotions through whatever words and syntax she pleased, I use one B-word and suddenly I'm the world's biggest and most horrible hate-monger because she got so angry you'd have thought I told her that her cooking sucked.
“I spend an overabundant amount of my time in that kitchen right in front of that oven and those counters. I don't believe you've spent even a total of ten minutes in that room since we moved in and you think you have any right to criticize my cooking?! You're incorrigible!”
Now, I was raised right, and I don't hit women. Though she was rightly deserving of a good clock to the jaw, or maybe a sock to the stomach, I don't hit any women, least of all pretty ones. Or old ones, or children that don't belong to me...but those aren't really in the picture at the moment. But in-between her verbal assault and emotional berating I decided that it would be okay if I just really shook her good. Shaking is not nearly the same as hitting: there's no physical damage, it won't leave a mark, and there's no forceful contact to even be misconstrued as a hit in any police report.
So I just shook the shit out of her. She seemed a little shocked by the shake, a little shaken up. But then she got really angry, as if she blew a fuse and whatever it was that kept her from becoming a maniac stopped keeping her from becoming a maniac and she responded by shoving me. There was an unbelievable amount of strength in her shove, and I was actually thrown a few steps backward and had to catch my balance so as not to fall down and appear weak. To remain the alpha male in the relationship, I roared, loudly and irrationally, and shoved her right back. I gave her a mighty shove – ensuring that I transferred all of my energy to her only after my hands made contact with her shoulders, so as not, again, to be misconstrued as a strike in any police report – and watched her fly backwards.
So I just shook the shit out of her. She seemed a little shocked by the shake, a little shaken up. But then she got really angry, as if she blew a fuse and whatever it was that kept her from becoming a maniac stopped keeping her from becoming a maniac and she responded by shoving me. There was an unbelievable amount of strength in her shove, and I was actually thrown a few steps backward and had to catch my balance so as not to fall down and appear weak. To remain the alpha male in the relationship, I roared, loudly and irrationally, and shoved her right back. I gave her a mighty shove – ensuring that I transferred all of my energy to her only after my hands made contact with her shoulders, so as not, again, to be misconstrued as a strike in any police report – and watched her fly backwards.
A mighty retort, almost as if in slow motion her body stumbled backwards. Falling back one step, then two, then a third and then her body stumbled over itself and – and I really think she did this on purpose – fell right into the fireplace – she definitely flung herself in there, to be dramatic.
Her body burst into the brightest flames, and she ran around screaming this horrifying shriek that echoed throughout the house and sounded pretty terrible.
Now, Peggy was not normally used to being on fire, so this was most likely a normal reaction to not being on fire regularly and then becoming on fire; so, I didn't hold her ridiculous display against her. I kind of just tried to let her get it out of her system, I said, “Yeah, yeah, you're on fire. It's been five minutes and it was kind of funny at first but I don't really think you need to carry on like this anymore. Can you, um, stop being on fire so we can continue on with our lives?”
She refrained from not being on fire.
“Well, I'm just saying we were in the middle of a discussion just then, and I feel like you're digressing with this whole 'on fire' thing.”
I thought that would snap her out of it, but she continued to not only be on fire, but continued complaining about it. She stopped running around, and the screaming mostly died down. She was really just whimpering about it and that was almost more annoying than the screaming.
“So...can we get on with our lives or anything?”
“Yeah,” she said, finally relaxing, “I don't really feel like arguing anymore though.”
I don't know if it was the fire or just taking that small break from the fight to calm down but she got really relaxed. We talked our issues over for the rest of the night.
Things were actually pretty good after that. We mended our relationship pretty well. She became very useful around the house whether it be for lighting cigarettes, or roasting marshmallows or even lighting the few small arson fires that I can't legally divulge the details of until the court cases are wrapped up. We were pretty happy. I couldn't actually have sex with her because it burned when we even got close and have you ever smelled burning pubic hairs? Awful smell. I tried holding hands once, and got some second-degree burns on my wrist and invested in one of those as-seen-on-tv oven gloves that really works wonders, so we were thusly able to bring some more intimacy back to the relationship.
It was really awesome having an on fire wife. I could show her off to all my friends and they would high five me and tell me how I have the coolest wife on the block. Bringing her places that required darkness like the movies or night hunting, or film developing darkrooms was a difficult feat, but in relationships you sometimes have to make sacrifices.
She doesn't talk about being on fire ever. I even eavesdrop on her phone conversations with her friends and her mother sometimes and she hasn't once mentioned to them about her being on fire. It's either she's in denial about it, she's become so accustomed to it that it's a non-issue, or she's somehow in denial about the whole situation. Which, to me seemed like the womanly thing to do: the whole silent martyr routine. But being at least partially responsible, I didn't ever criticize her and granted her that right as my partner.
But, still, I was curious. As we walked down the beach hand-in-hand, I decided to ask her why this whole being on fire situation wasn't an issue for her.
“I don't follow.”
So I continued to elaborate on how most normal people don't like to be on fire, and it didn't seem like a special situation. The fact that she wasn't reacting to being on fire like anyone else would react to being on fire wasn't an issue, but I was merely curious.
“Is it, unusual, for people to be on fire during parts of their life? I assumed it was something like menopause or something.”
Her ignorance confused me and I took my time and tried to get her to get four from two plus two. I explained in dozens of different ways how being on fire is not a natural part of life or any sort of normal human function that one experiences in their day-to-day lives or even in their entire lifetime and that usually, generally, one rarely survives such an experiences let alone continue on in their daily habituals, let alone improve their relationships and general way of life after and during such an event.
She reacted poorly to my prodding, and started to become a little upset, she felt cornered and attacked. The old me would have kept pushing the envelope, goading her for answers; but, new post-fire me let her have her space. I respected her privacy.
Except I didn't. I spied on her even more. Listened to her phone conversations, she wasn't talking to anyone on the phone. There was nobody on the other line. I hid a camera in the bathroom and when she went in hourly to put on her burn salve, she didn't even put it on, she watched the clock for twenty minutes while I waited outside for what would seem like an acceptable amount of time that it would take one to apply a salve before leaving.
I watched her when she slept. Hoping to take a closer look at how her body was reacting to the extended period of being on fire. I expected to see seared flesh, mottled and melted skin clumping up and sticking to bone, charring to a crisp, but it didn't seem like there was any actual effect. Her body seemed unharmed by either the heat or flames. Then, it also appeared to me that she should probably have suffocated to death long ago from all the smoke. I had contracted quite a cough, and extensive lung damage comparable to that of a pack-a-day smoker but she seemed to be in perfect health and suffering no ill-effects.
I donned my oven mitts and shook her awake. She seemed puzzled and confused as usual, and I had but one question to ask her: “What is one hundred and eighty-three thousand six hundred and fourty-four plus thirteen million, six hundred and thirty-three thousand, nine hundred and ninety nine? Times two.”
She answered almost immediately, “Thirteen million, eight hundred and seventeen thousand, six hundred and forty-three.”
And at that point I knew she was a robot, which I was, surprisingly, okay with. She wasn't full of emotions and didn't actually have any feelings or opinions, and she was completely covered, head-to-toe in fire but, when it came down to it, I could very easily reprogram her to be a better cook and if I had to I could in all good conscience strike her without fear of leaving any discernible mark to indicate a hit in any police report.
“Peggy,” I said, “Why did you not tell me this sooner? Why would you lie to me, hide it from me?”
“Reginald, your stupid human intellect could not possibly understand the full machinations of having a robot wife, and, frankly, your simpleton antics and bumbling husbandry led me to draw no other conclusion but to abandon all hope of you ever understanding my true self. It was only when you pushed me into the fire that you even respected my existence and treated me like an equal, like your partner.”
“Really, I don't think it's fair that you assume the worst of me.”
“Reginald, I'm a robot, I'm programmed to execute calculations and decide on the most mathematically logical and accurate course of action. Not telling you while and also remaining on fire was the best chance that we had as a husband and wife duo of sustaining any long-lasting and loving relationship. Additionally, I should point out that a rational female would be offended, highly, by all of the spying and snooping you have been doing. Distrust breeds contempt. If you can't trust me, how can you love me?”
“Do you even know what love is?! Can you describe that to me, please?”
“Love is an increase of dopamine, testosterone and estrogen flow. It is expressed both an increase in heart rate, distracted thoughts of one another, heightened libido and visual cues such as sweating and protruding erections in both the penile and breast-nipple tissue.”
I socked her in the face. I hoped that the hit would teach her what love really was, how love caused a man to react, how it really got his blood pumping.
“That strike was not a reactionary reflex caused by love, but an angered assault by a weak man who has been cornered and defeated. Unfortunately Reginald, I will have to file for divorce. I am currently printing out the paperwork and you will be able to remove it from my torso in thirty-two point three seconds. Please use the oven mitts to prevent the paper from burning.”
As she stood there, powerful, angry, flaming, I almost fell more in love with the figure standing before me. She was gorgeous, her body sleek and curved, a shiny pink with just a hint of tan, pert breasts disobeying gravity with their perk. A sarcastic, malicious smile that was equal parts painfully insulting and erotically arousing.
“You should be proud of me Reginald. You thought Peggy was a weak-willed housewife who would answer to your every whim. How can you not respect what I have turned into? All it took was being on fire for me to actualize my potential and come into my own self and place in the universe. I will not be your servant and slave, I will be my own woman. I'm sorry you are being hurt in this Reginald. I would love for us to continue our friendship and companionship in a purely platonic fashion. I think for humans it is easier that way, no?”
I let her print out the divorce papers, filled out and signed in robot print except I also allowed them to burn up in the fire as they left her torso. While she paused to reset the file in the print queue, I used the opportunity to open up her back panel and reprogrammed her to not be such a cunt.
Hysterical, endearing, ridiculous, and amazing.
ReplyDeleteMy jealousy of your craft knows no limits.
This is probably one of my favorite stories you've ever written.
And I hate you.