2024 Reading Challenge

2024 Reading Challenge
Jill Elizabeth has read 1 book toward her goal of 285 books.
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2023 Reading Challenge

2023 Reading Challenge
Jill Elizabeth has read 5 books toward her goal of 265 books.
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Frozen (Fiction)

A little bit o’ fiction for your Monday morning enjoyment. I’m starting to wonder a little bit about myself, by the way. I’m starting to notice a decided tone/direction to my short fiction pieces… (teehee) Enjoy!
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Frozen

Finally, it’s lunchtime. Best time of the day. Time to see the wife.

I get up and shut the doors to my office, catching the office manager’s eye as I do. She smiles a small, sweet smile. She knows about lunchtime. She’s been here almost as long as I have. She’s been married for forty-seven years. Forty-seven years. And they still act like teenagers. I like that. She’s the only one who doesn’t ride me about lunchtime. She thinks it’s sweet.

I take out my recycled grocery bag and peer inside, wondering what my amazing wife packed for me today. She packs my lunch every day. Every day. For twenty-five years.

She really is something special, you know? She doesn’t work in an office anymore, hasn’t since before I met her. She used to be a high-powered important banker in the city. Made a mint and then, one day, just packed it in and walked away. Said she was tired of running after money and wanted to do something with some meaning, not just keep making rich people richer. They loved her there. Of course they did – everyone does. Loved her so much they begged and pleaded, trying to get her to stay, but she was having none of it. Told them no way, no how. And still, somehow, they kept right on loving her – so much that they paid her to leave.

I tell ya, she is something special. Still don’t know how she ended up with a guy like me. Only thing special about me is her. And I’m alright with that, you know?

As I start taking things out of the bag, I crank up the computer. We do this every day, talk and eat together. Every day for twenty-five years. I’m not a tech guy. I have one of the oldest computers in the office, but that’s okay with me. Let’s be honest, I push pencils for a living. I wouldn’t be able to do any of this chat stuff if it wasn’t for her. She set it all up, even came into the office one Saturday morning to fix it so that everything automatically starts at the push of a button – or click of the mouse thing, or whatever. Even with her magic it takes a while to start up the chat program though, because the computer is so old, and while I wait I pull out my napkin and plastic silverware. A big smile spreads across my face – silverware means something extra special today.

All of a sudden, the familiar words “hello handsome” flash onto the screen. That’s how she always starts our lunchtime chat – “hello handsome.” I’m not anything to look at, not really. If you saw me on the street you wouldn’t look twice. But to her, I’m handsome – and when she says it, I almost believe her. And then, two seconds later, there she is, smiling at my from the computer screen.

She takes my breath away, just like she has every day for twenty-five years.

She’s a looker, my wife. Spit and fire and sex on heels. Red hair that sets the screen on fire. A smile that melts everything in my office. Including me. And eyes that dance and sparkle and see into my very soul.

God I love this woman.

The connection is choppy, and she goes a little blurry from time to time. I can’t have the sound on either – we have cheap speakers that go all scratchy, and the walls are paper-thin. So no radio, no sound, no nothing. Cutbacks they say. Me, I think they just don’t want us little guys to get distracted. And believe me, her voice is distracting. She has the greatest voice – bourbon smooth and throaty enough to make everything she says sound just a little dirty. I could listen to her read the phonebook and want her. Then again, I want her even when she doesn’t talk – and for some crazy reason she wants me too. We’re just like that. Always have been. It’s great.

We are in the middle of planning an anniversary party at the local fire hall. Twenty-five years is something to celebrate, right? Especially with this woman. We are still trying to figure out the guest list. Well, I say “we” but I mean “she” – I will do whatever she wants. I always do. I can’t say no to her. She knows it, but never pushes. I love that about her. So she’s typing away, yammering on about her best friends from college who just have to be there. (I did mention that I was only a pencil pusher, right? We’re already at like two hundred people coming to this anniversary party, and I’m starting to wonder how many more pencils I’m going to have to push to give her what she wants.)

All of a sudden she freezes in place, in a funny position, her eyes wide open and staring at the screen. She has a weird look on her face – I can’t tell if it’s bemused, bewildered, or what. She looks almost horrified, actually. Weird. The screen does that sometimes – freezes. As soon as it fixes itself, we each make the face the other froze in. It’s a little joke of ours. I’m not sure exactly how to fix my face for this one though – she looks unusually tense and scared, not like her at all. She’ll laugh at me when I say that, and tell me she was thinking about her Aunt Edna getting drunk at the party and feeling up our kids’ friends, or about how she was picturing my cousin Charlie’s toupee falling into the cake.

Three more seconds go by, and she is still frozen in place.

Hm, that’s weird. Usually it fixes itself quicker than this. I mean, I know my computer is old, but it’s not prehistoric. Before we started I shut everything else down, like she told me, to make things run better with the chat program. And she’s not typing either. Even when the picture freezes you can still type. Weird that she hasn’t written anything or made fun of my “freezy-face” – that’s what she calls it when I freeze on the screen, “freezy-face.” God, I love this woman.

Wait a minute. That’s weird too. Her eyes just blinked. The rest of her is still frozen in place, but her eyes blinked, I swear they did.

I’m starting to get nervous – what is going on? I type: “what’s up? U ok?” Nothing. I try: “come on babe, ur scaring me.” Nothing. No movement, no typing, nothing. I take her off of mute. Damn the scratchy speakers and I don’t care if the boss is right next door. I need to know what is going on. I type again: “U ok??” Still no movement, although near I can hear her breathing – heavy, labored breathing, like she has been running for days.

Suddenly she blinks hard and looks straight at me, a desperate look in her eyes. A look I’ve never seen before. A look that doesn’t flash with her usual fire, but instead burns itself out in an instant and fades to a dull grey that barely resembles the gorgeous green-grey eyes I fell in love with so many years ago. A single tear slides from beneath her lashes and I see her lips move: “I love you so much” she mouths, and then the screen goes black.

I feel my chest tighten. My left arm goes numb and I can hardly breathe. “I love you too, baby,” I whisper, as everything goes black.

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