Wednesday Works: Nice Ring To It

The day had been perfect. Coffee in the morning while in bed. Packing for a trip with no little petty arguments, excitement for getting out of town for a few days. Everything had been perfect.

She had a feeling something was happening. Something in the air felt like change, charged with excitement. On their usual afternoon walk, they talked of the future, as they had before, but even then, their conversation was different.

Then, that night, it all began to make sense.

Waiting for their friends to arrive for dinner, preparing the potatoes and the steak, he came in and revealed the news they had been fighting again.

She sighed and kept stirring the potatoes. Then she asked if they were going to be like their friends, fighting all the time, never on the same page.

He promised they wouldn’t.

Once everyone was inside, shooting stars outside was brought up and he led her out onto the deck.

As soon as they were all out on the deck, the apprehension snuck in. Candles decorated the deck, arranged in perfect symmetry and protected from the night breeze. The stars shimmered up above, the bright spots of planets there too.

After a cute, but nervous speech, he got down on one knee. “Will you marry me?”

She, of course, said yes without a single doubt in her mind.

Once the ring was on, and they had toasted and sat down to dinner, the thought struck her.

“Fiancée has a nice ring to it.”

Monday Microfiction: Count Your Blessings

The day the mine collapsed, her new husband came home unscathed, covered in dirt and dust from head to toe. She counted each and every blessing as she inspected him and scrubbed him clean. Wrapped up in the desperation of newlyweds, she counted her blessings as her hands explored his body. Once they were finished, and he lay sleeping, she turned to his uniform.

She scrubbed the dark stains from his clothes, counted each one as a blessing that he came home alive, then took it out to the line to hang. Halfway through hanging his uniform, her husband came out.

“Lover of mine, the laundry can wait.” He kissed her cheek gently, the intoxication of him enough to pull her away from the chores. “Come back to bed.”

There were still more blessings to come.