My fantasy for Valentine’s Day is for us to share a special meal and a decent bottle of wine followed by a really nice dessert, something chocolatey and rich, after which we retire to bed, turn off the lights, take off all our clothes and get under the covers exploring each other with our fingertips while we share everything about ourselves, every hope, dream, fear, insecurity, childhood memory, existential doubt, secret, worst moment, best moment and fantasy and we discuss them at length and in great detail until we each gain an understanding of ourselves that only a few of the most dedicated lamas have ever even achieved, a cogent psychological and pathological comprehension that enables us to know exactly why we are the way we are and prophetic insight into what each of our futures looks like and we share all of this information with each other until we know each other better than any two people have ever known one another, able to anticipate the other’s needs and desires, empowering us to be more generous lovers than all the figures dreamt up by the poets and artists, coming together as one entity, in wholly pursuit of physical and emotional rapture until, using a special breathing technique heretofore unknown, we reach an ecstatic release of involuntary reverberation and full body orgasm for several minutes that feels like eons because of the breathing, during which we approach the singularity, a complete harmony with all living things, and after which we are just a ravel of two souls, an amorphous puddle of carbon and calcium and water with a total grasp of the universe and life for whom time has lost all meaning and we recognize that our physical forms are just temporary vessels that our spirits will inhabit for the blink of the galaxy’s eye and just before we succumb to a most deep and restful slumber we decide that we’re finally ready to be poly.

Gary didn’t understand dating. Sure, he got the romanticized notion of meeting your perfect mate and spending the remainder of your life in perpetual bliss but that was the stuff of fairy tales and children’s stories. To Gary, in the real world, dating was about sex plain and simple.

Gary drove a truck, a tractor-trailer to be more accurate, as far east as Chicago, as far south as New Orleans and all over the Western States. He’d be on the road for days, sometimes up to a week. Then he’d have a few days off to rest and take care of life’s other requirements. When he was supposed to fit in dating confounded Gary.

Gary lived in Fallon, Nevada - less than an hour from Carson City where his company would load up and receive trailers full of anything and everything. After unloading at the docking bay Gary and his semi would take the 80 east past Reno to US-50 and US-50 right to downtown Fallon, both blocks of it. But it had everything Gary needed. If he needed a trim, he went to Grouchy’s. If he needed more meds for his back pain, he went to see Dr. Mullen. And if he needed sex, Gary went to Salt Wells.

The Salt Wells Villa was a brothel that catered to truckers and servicemen from the Fallon Naval Air Station. The Villa had a large, sunken-floor parlor straight out of the 70s with red-orange shag carpet and wood-panelled walls. The women were not flashy like at some of the places down by Vegas, but dolled-up and working the parlor each was as beautiful as a bride on her wedding day, and every day for these women was their wedding night.

Gary’s favorite woman at the Villa was Deena, a tall, dark-haired lady with emerald green eyes and some meat on her bones. (Voluptuous is how they market a fat whore, Deena was not voluptuous, she was nobody’s fetish, unless your fetish is perineal tear scars. Her twin boys were now six and not too far away from learning what their mother really did for work from their classmates.) Deena was marketed as a MILF or as the girl-next-door.

Deena was Gary’s favorite because she was soft and caring. She would lie naked on a bed in one of the hostel-sized bedrooms that ran the length of the back hallway and let Gary rub her all over, some days for hours. It got such that they didn’t even have sex. They’d call it in as a half-and-half but there was no sex, Gary didn’t even take out his pecker anymore. He’d still have sex, but with the other women. With Sheri or Aspen or even Mia. But they’d make all sorts of noises and say rude things. One time Mia said, ‘There’s no way Deena’s as tight as me, eh Big Daddy?’ Gary stopped seeing Mia after that.

After running a wiggle wagon down to Tuscon, Gary thought about Deena during the return trip. He thought about how nice it’d be to get home and have Deena waiting there for a rubdown instead of at the Villa. He told Deena what he’d been thinking the next day at Salt Wells. Deena put her arms around him and started crying. ‘Oh, Gary. You’re the sweetest person to me. I think it’s a beautiful idea.’

They got married and Deena and the boys moved in with Gary. She stopped working at the Villa and became a full-time housespouse and rubdown receiver. Gary’s commute home from Carson City became a joyous jaunt, filled with anticipation. For a while, anyway. At some point Deena stopped waiting for Gary in bed and the rubs would take place that night or the next day. Then, after one of his trips, they didn’t happen at all. Soon it became the new norm.

Gary grew frustrated. One day he decided to head on over to Salt Well. Deena asked him where he was going. ‘Oh, no!’ she said. ‘You’re not going there. No husband of mine is going to a whorehouse.’ Gary put his keys back on the side table and sat in his chair. He did not understand marriage.

You’ve got a date. It’s with that girl you met in front of the Art Gallery. She was waiting for her friends or classmates or whomever and looking good, like an open-minded, liberal, art school girl. High-waisted, flat-fronted blue jeans with immaculately cuffed legs, hugging wonderfully full hips. A clingy, short-sleeved black top tucked into the jeans with just enough cleavage to evoke Rubens, or more contemporarily, Currin. A severe hairstyle with bangs to the eyebrows and bob cut just under the jawline with what must have been a plasma cutter framing her angelic face with a curtain of chestnut. And that face - you’ve seen plenty of gorgeous faces since arriving in the States, but… Eyes like half-moons, skin like warm cream. Lips, pouty and thick with a punch of fire engine red. It’s like a sculptor went into your dreams, copied your fantasy and brought it to life. Your perfect woman.

You walked up to her and said, ‘Hello. My name’s Owen. What’s yours?’

She said, ‘Lauren.’

You’ve found dating in America pretty easy. The accent does most of the work. ‘Well, hello, Lauren. I’d like to take you dinner.’

Lauren looked down at her feet, laughing timidly. ‘I don’t even know you.’

‘Well, I reckon you’d want to get to know me before I ask you to marry me.’

Lauren looks back up at you, her eyes dazzling. ‘You’re not like other guys.’

You cock your head and smile. ‘Well, I should hope not.’ You pull out your phone and prime it to add a new contact and hand it to her. She bites her lower lip and takes it without breaking eye contact. Then she enters her number and hands it back to you. You call her. Her rear pocket starts playing that Haim song no one gives a shit about. She takes out her phone. ‘Now you have my number and my heart.’ When she didn’t roll her eyes you knew you had her.

You opt for Tavern for the date. Away from campus, head chef was on Chopped, plus they have that amazing grilled octopus. And oysters. You arrive at 7.15 for your 7.30 reservation to make sure you get the good table by the window. You get it and order a Peroni. And then you wait, the anticipation warming your blood. You bask in expectation.

She arrives. Her consignment store floral print dress doesn’t quite hit her in the right ways but the plunging neckline and visible black lace bra allow you to forgive the mediocre attempt at glamour. You rise and pull out her seat, taking the opportunity to leer at her backside. You subtly adjust yourself as you sit back down.

After orders are placed and her glass of Chardonnay is served she says, ‘So, Owen. Tell me something interesting about yourself.’

You begin. ‘Well, once I was abducted.’

‘Abducted?’

‘Yeah. Abducted.’

‘By aliens?’

‘No, no, no. Not by aliens. By people.’

‘So you were kidnapped?’

‘Sure. That’s what you call it,’ you say.

‘Who kidnapped you?’

‘It was an extremist group.’

‘Why?’

‘Well, this happened back in London. You see my father is a big deal in the government. And they thought they could get some money for me.’

‘Who is your father?’

‘He’s the Leader of the Opposition Party. But his party was projected to take power when I was abducted.’

‘How awful,’ Lauren says. You can tell she wants to hear more.

‘Oh it was. They needed a proof-of-life video but I refused to cooperate so they zapped my bollocks with a car battery.’

‘Oh my god,’ Lauren gasps.

‘Yeah. It hurt like bloody hell. But it left me sterile and makes it difficult to finish so I’m a dynamo in bed.’ Lauren doesn’t quite hide her disgust. You sense you’re losing her. ‘I’m just joking. It can be rather difficult to discuss so I try to laugh about it.’ Her expression eases into one of sympathy and she nods. You feel absolved.

‘Can I ask how it ended?’

‘Sure,’ you respond. ‘One of them got cold feet and went to the police - turned himself in. Blue berets came and rescued me, arrested the others.’

‘Lucky you,’ Lauren says.

‘I tend to get lucky,’ you respond with a smile. She laughs reluctantly and rolls her eyes. You’re back in business.

The rest of dinner goes well. You offer to drive her home. She agrees but asks if you can swing by her friend’s place first for a quick visit. You comply - never hurts to meet a friend.

The friend lives behind a falafel restaurant downtown. You find a parking space and open Lauren’s door for her. She leads you around the restaurant to a small building that is not well lit. You again open the door for Lauren and she rushes inside. You notice it’s too dark for anyone to be home and then someone throws something over your head and pushes you into the space. You’re forced to the ground and from not too far away you hear Lauren talking, now with a strong Irish accent, ‘So help me, if any of you bastards gets cold feet and goes to the authorities...’ Before you consider screaming for help you think about how sexy you find her brogue and wonder if there’s still a chance.

“Welcome to Make Use of the Ambient Temperature. I’m ya host G Garvin. Ya man G Garvin in the building. Today we’re gonna feature locally sourced ingredients that you can find at any remnants of a home. These meals all feature things you can likely find rummaging through what used to be somebody’s home. Keep ya money in ya pocket.

“First we gonna deal with the star of our meal - the mushroom growing out of what once was a human face - that’s right, face-mushrooms. We all know face-shroom got that real earthiness, that muddy funkiness, like death itself, ya know. So we wanna cut a bit of that death-flavor with some aromatics. Let’s make a rub. A few shallots, like that right there, a little garlic, make sure everythings got its flavor. We chop them up real nice and then spread that mixture all over our mushrooms. Get it everywhere - be sure and flip that baby over, get it in the fins and everything. Some of the strongest funk comes outta those fins. So make sure you be nice and thorough.

“All right, we gonna let those marinade and start with the side dish. So now corn is nice, but since we ain't seen any corn since the event we gonna use pine cone nibs. So just take your pine corn and bone saw and just hack those nibs right off. Just like that. And get the end ones too. Right. Now. Take your nibs and we need to soften them up, so put them in a boiling pothole water bath and loosen up them fibers.

“Now why that’s going down we need to start the vegetable, a septic tank pepper puree. First we take our pepper and you wanna cut off the stem end and get those seeds out. Lemme show you, you just cut off the end right here. Then flip that pepper and grab the back of the stem and the ribs and seeds and just pull all that garbage out. Yeah. You don’t wanna eat that stuff. Little trick of the trade for you. That was a free one.

“Once you got that just put the pepper in an outboard motor blade, or an old sink disposal, whatever you’ve got handy. I’m gonna use my cordless power drill with a steel wool bit and just mash that pepper up. Get it good and pureed. And then just scrape that into a bowl and we don’t need it till plating.

“Let’s go ahead and grab those pine cone nibs out the boiling pothole bath. They should be nice and soft now. Go ahead give one a little taste. Mmm. Perfect. Okay so we wanna put a little more flavor into these so go ahead and put them in this pan we’ve been heating some oil up in. You might have some canola oil, you might have some old motor oil. What ever you wanna do, you gonna do it. Throw those nibs right into the oil here. Now… Just a touch, radiated chicken stock, create that steam, make them nibs a little softer. We good to go.

“Last, we grab our face-mushrooms that been marinating. Shake off that extra marinade. And then throw them on any metal surface to give them a quick sear. I got my window grate here, myself. And just put them on, like that. And we wanna do two minutes a side.

“While that gets hot we’re gonna plate our pepper puree. You don’t want to go and mess up your presentation at the end of the day, so get those good hubcaps out and let’s start by making a smear of the puree right across the center of the hubcap. Now grab your pine cone nibs and make a nice little pile at the tail end of our smear. Just about that much. Okay. Finally, let’s take our shrooms right off the grate here and put them real nice aslant on the pile of nibs and into the puree. There we go. It’s looking nice. Last sprinkle with a little salt and some fresh chopped sidewalk dandelion. Bam. We ready to eat.

“There you have it, folks. Diamonds outta dollars. No dollars prolly. Keep ya dollars in ya house. This ya man, G Garvin. Remember, we all gonna go, don’t go hungry. Until the next time, keep it smooth.”

I realized that choosing a last meal was going to be the last real decision I’d ever make. And I didn’t want to fuck it up. The more I thought about it the more confident I was that I wouldn’t be able to eat much and would certainly feel nauseous no matter what I requested. So I made aroma a key factor - if I wasn’t going to enjoy tasting it, I might as well enjoy smelling it. What always smells great and improves the day no matter what? Coffee. And what goes well with coffee? Breakfast.

Breakfast became the obvious choice. Of course. I am certainly no stranger to the breakfast-anytime philosophy. I love breakfast. A classic breakfast. Bacon, eggs, toast. Pancakes. Sausage. Homefries. Grits. And coffee. Can you smell it? Each item, its own delicious, enticing aroma.

Even if I don’t touch it…

Plus, breakfast, while a wonderful meal whenever, is always best in the morning. The first meal of the day and a promising beginning to it. Despite having a fairly good idea of where your day is heading while wiping up that last bit of egg and onion with your last slice of toast, this day could go a million different ways. It could be the best day of your life. And you’re ready for it after a satisfying Denver omelette with rye toast or Lumberjack. Or Pork Roll, egg and cheese on a toasted Kaiser bun with ketchup. Or anything from the goddamned Waffle House.

I went simple. I went Lumberjack.

It is served. I’d already been crying for hours. Who could sleep? They bring the meal to you. You don’t have to go to chow-hall or nothing. And I’ll give them credit - it's a quality plate. Thick-cut, crispy bacon, grill-marked sausage in an actual casing, a good crust on the slice of ham, glossy, bright scrambled eggs with peaks not plateaus, golden brown pancakes with lacy edges dripping with butter, and a Bunn carafe steaming with Jamacian Blue Mountain coffee.

I had chosen well. My tears wane for moment and I genuinely forget about things. About reality. I eat a rasher. The chew is perfect. I fork a chunk of egg. Like butter. I pick the edge off one of the pancakes. Crispy and slightly burnt. I pour a cup of the coffee in to the accompanying mug and smell it. Ecstasy. I take a cautious sip. I smile.

Over the next half-four I take small bites of everything and drink half the pot of coffee. I realize I didn’t specify real maple syrup and am subjected to Kraft maple syrup flavored topping. My last mistake.

When my stomach begs for no more coffee the guards cart my leftovers away. For a few minutes I am alone. I am warm from my meal. I am ready to face what the day brings.

You ever have that dream where you’re falling, only you don’t wake up you just keep falling? And you swear the sensation of falling is real and it’s exhilarating and scary and unreal all at the same time. I like that dream. I like it a lot.

Last year, when we could fly and go places, I went to Japan. Tokyo mostly. It’s like the future, there. Not the actual future but like the future from the original Blade Runner movie, only less rainy. They have the kinds of conveniences that are inconvenient until you know how to utilize them properly. I guess that’s just new technology.

Anyway, I was in Tokyo, being a tourist, marvelling at the future they live in and I got propositioned to be a contestant in a game show in the entertainment district. A guy in a bright orange shirt with a lanyard and clipboard saw me and said, ‘Hey, American, you want be on game show? Win a-big prizes?’ I assented and he brought me half a block to another orange-shirted individual with a different clipboard and another ID badge clipped to her shirt. She helped me fill out some paperwork and had me sign it. Then I was ushered into a studio inside the building we had been outside of.

I know, and like, Japanese game shows: Takashi’s Castle (the source show for MXC), Hole in the Wall, the one where people had to live in an apartment and survive by winning newspaper contests (which I only know about because my friend’s brother was a musician on its theme song). And I expected something sadistic and highly luck-based. I was dead-on.

Blind like Bat had contestants wear flippers (like underwater flippers, for your feet) and traverse a gently padded floor in which large holes created limited pathways, kind of like that old labyrinth game with the marble. Except there weren’t dead ends, just holes.

Contestants were given twenty seconds to survey the flood before being blindfolded and given a low-frequency pulse generator (it looks like a Nerf gun) to replicate a bat’s sonar system. The idea was the large wavelengths generated would bounce of the floor creating a kind of echo but not bounce of the holes, giving the user a sense of where the holes were and where the pathways were.

Contestants went one at a time and we weren’t allowed to see any one else’s attempt. When it was my turn I used my surveying time to plan out the first twenty feet, just less than halfway across the floor. Once blindfolded, but knowing my initial path, I utilized the pulse gun those first few steps to calibrate myself to its use: imagine dropping a stone down a filled-in well as opposed to a deep, open well. It was subtle, but there was definitely a sensible distinction.

The other issue I foresaw was getting turned around in the middle of the room. If you weren’t careful you could easily lose your sense of which side the exit was on and go the wrong way. So I planned to alternate left and right ninety degree turns and do my best to stay in the middle of the floor.

I was successful. I navigated the floor, found the exit and won the game. My prize - a session in the most advanced virtual reality system in the world (you know, the future) with the ability to go anywhere, fly through the air, all while suspended in a tank of oxidated water in a hyperbaric chamber to simulate weightlessness. I wouldn’t be actually flying, but my brain wouldn’t know that.

There was additional functionality as well. I could move things at will, create, destroy them. Other people’s (the bots generated by the game) thoughts would appear in text bubbles if I so desired. I could dilate - shrink or grow - and lower my opacity to appear ghost-like or set it to zero and be completely invisible. All of these features were nice, but I knew from my first moment in the synthetic world what I was going to do.

I flew to the eastern edge of the Sargasso Sea and then went up as high as the simulation would let me, about five miles above sea level. I created a hole with a ten foot diameter directly through the center of the planet all the way to the Indian Ocean off the west coast of Australia. A perfect tunnel from one side of the world to the other. The opportunity to experience freefall for hours.

I flattened myself against the outer edge of the simulated atmosphere and turned off my ability to fly. I fell. I fell to the surface of the virtual world, through the hole I’d created. As I recalled from my high school physics class, this contrived scenario would result in an object accelerating to the center of the planet (ignoring air resistance) and then decelerating until a velocity of zero was achieved at an altitude equal to the original height of the fall, at which point the entire thing would happen again and continue to happen ad infinitum. A perfect oscillation. Perpetual freefall. But unlike a satellite orbiting a planet, a freefall with a variable speed.

I was the object and I fell for hours. I fell until the simulation technicians turned off the simulator and the fluid I was suspended in was drained and I was released from my harness and headset. I left the simulation studio with a smile etched on my face.

The next day I took the train to Kyoto where the cherry blossoms were in bloom. They were nice.

....singles karaoke...open bar....three-hour cruise…alarms...panic....life preserver...water….screams….

I come to on a beach. I am surrounded by a group of people. They are discussing what to do with me.

‘Given the rate at which we consume coconuts, an additional mouth would deplete our supply within a month.’

‘I wouldn’t feel safe with another man on the island. Especially such a grody one.’

‘I agree with Mary Ann. He looks like proper trash. Pure rubbish.’

This one, the older man, catches my attention. I’ve always been a sucker for an older man. And this one, refined, speaking with a Locust Valley lockjaw cadence, looking fabulous amongst a group who’ve obviously been stranded for some time.

‘Now hold on everyone.’ This is another older man, speaking like a leader, with his blue shirt still struggling to conceal his belly. Perhaps if he shared a few of his coconuts there wouldn’t be such a shortage. He goes on, ‘We’ve discussed the possibility of another castaway and developed our contingency.’

All their eyes shift from me to the scrawny, big-nosed fellow in the red shirt and dopey hat. He gulps like a bad actor.

The apparent leader continues, ‘A new castaway may stay if he can defeat Gilligan in a battle...to the death.’

The old bag hanging off my man says, ‘Ohhh, but he’s just got here. Shouldn’t we at least give him a meal and bath first?’

The group agrees and I’m escorted to a rudimentary shack made from bamboo and palm leaves. A very attractive redhead I’m sure I’ve seen somewhere brings me a pail of water, a rag made from a terrycloth shirt, and a bowl of coconut curry.

She says to me, ‘Oh, I hate that you have to fight. Good luck, darling.’

Before she leaves I ask, ‘Is that handsome ascot-wearing fellow a...you know, a friend of Dorothy?’

The redhead doesn’t understand. I don’t know how long they’ve been here. ‘Dorothy who?’

‘Nevermind.’

I eat, clean myself up, and look around the shack. There are several gadgets: the steering wheel of a boat made into a roulette wheel, a hot-air ballon basket, something that resembles a sewing machine. I’m beginning to think that life on this island isn’t too bad and, perhaps, episodically entertaining.

The smart one arrives and tells me it’s time. He leads me to a ring of torches on a different beach than the one I washed up on. The leader speaks to me. ‘Stranger. As per the rules of the island, no man may stay on the island unless he can defeat Gilligan in a battle to the death.’ The lanky, red shirted guy is apparently Gilligan and he stands across from me, his legs more wobbly than a Thanksgiving Jell-O salad. We are each give a bamboo spear and a buckler made from coconut husks.

The rest of the island’s inhabitants gather together on one side of the circle. I give the sugardaddy a wink and we smiles coyly before his eyes check to make sure the old hag isn’t looking. I feel good about my chances.

‘On my mark,’ says the leader, ‘Three, two, one…’

To be continued.

An hour to live.

I look at all the books on my shelves that I never got around to reading. Any one could have been my all-time favorite. I look at those I did read and try to remember storylines, main characters, themes. It is difficult, I’ve forgotten so much that I question the value of the time I spent reading them. This takes five minutes. Fifty-five minutes to live.

I go to the pantry and look at all the cans of food I never got around to eating. I check a few nutrition labels. All that fat, all that salt, all that sugar I could’ve ingested. I check a few expiration dates - several have had their last hours yet they persist entombed in aluminum, maybe still edible, maybe not - Schroedinger’s cans. This takes eight minutes.

Forty-seven minutes to live.

I go to the living room, flip on the television. I check the DVR - all the shows I never got around to watch. All these are programs that I once believed worth watching. A fourteen part Ken Burns document. Sorry, Ken. Half a season of Modern Family, after they started phoning it in. Meh - should have erased that a while ago. The CNN docuseries on the Royal Family. Oops. This takes seven minutes. Forty minutes left to live.

I pick up my phone and open Photos. There are more than three thousand photos on my phone, most of which I haven’t looked at, unless you count taking them, which I don’t. I wonder what I thought I’d ever do with them - make an album? Show them to the grandkids? (Gotta have kids to have grandkids.) Many of the photos were taken in bursts, meaning that there are like dozens of nearly the same shot, perhaps none of them good. Didn’t cost anything to take too many photos, not even time. This takes twelve minutes. Twenty-eight minutes left to live.

I go to the attic. It’s full of boxes. The boxes are full of things I once cared about - clothes, comic books, that wetsuit I bought to compete in a triathlon. Didn’t need it, the water temp was high enough that wetsuits weren’t allowed in the competition. Wonder if it fits? I could wear it now, but I don’t put it on. I’m not cool enough to die in a wetsuit. This takes ten minutes. Eighteen minutes left to live.

I go out on the terrace and look at the trees. They sway gently, the leaves shimmy creating a white noise that blocks out the highway and the cacophony of my thoughts. I seek calm. I seek peace. It takes a while but I find it. It lasts for a few seconds, then gives way to reality. I start to cry. This takes eleven minutes. Seven minutes left to live.

I go to the garage. The device is all prepared to operate. I take a few final breaths. I’ve always enjoyed the smell of the garage - moldy, gassy, oily, greater than the sum of its parts. Three minutes left to live.

I climb into the device. It’s suppose to take three minutes to work. I hesitate when closing the lid. In that moment I wish my life didn’t have to end. I think, there’s so much more I had to do. I want more time. But then I remember how I spent the last fifty-seven minutes and decide that I’d have just wasted that time too. I relax. I put my head down and wonder how the device works. Then I die. This takes four minutes.

He bounds down the walkway from his apartment building hopping from foot to foot, pumping his arms in an exaggerated fashion. I guess the dentist doesn’t make him nervous. He gets in the car and we’re off.

‘Can I change the station?’ he asks before we even reach the end of the block. Currently it’s tuned to one of my presets, some pop station playing some pop song – not one that I care for.

I say, ‘Sure.’

Bent slightly forward, finger hovering, ready to act, he needs a minute to find the right button. The pop song fades into an interlude of silence before the next station comes in. Talk radio. Commercial. Commercial. Religious. Classical. Some song in Spanish…

Traffic is light so I steal a glance at him. He looks intent on finding something he likes on the radio, perhaps trying to avoid conversation. ‘When’s the last time you had a filling?’ I ask.

The task at hand is momentarily suspended while he appears to think, subjecting us to some country song in the interim. ‘Geez, it’s been while. Probably five or six years, since just after school.’ He resumes his mission, sparing us from the country song. The next station has a classic rock song (I’m so bad with bands!) and it is deemed acceptable - he sits back and begins singing along.

I wonder if he’s being rude since we aren’t conversing. I suppose I’m just being overly sensitive. I’m not sure what I expected. I simply responded to his Facebook request for a ride to the dentist. That doesn’t make this a date. I don’t even want to date him. We are just Facebook friends, not real friends. Well, we’re friends but not good friends. I mean we’re often at the same parties and events, we run with the same group of people.

He takes a break from singing and says, ‘Hey, thanks for the ride, by the way. Very nice of you.’

‘Oh, no biggie.’

The dentist’s office is in a small office building just a disco song and half an NPR piece up the road.

‘Do you mind if I just drop you off out front?’

‘That’s great, thanks,’ he replies. I watch him all the way to the building then I find a parking space a few rows deep in the parking lot in front of the complex.

I try to keep listening to NPR but after twenty minutes I turn it off (how do all those people listen to it all day??) and take out my phone. Another twenty minutes and I’ve grown bored of email and InstaGram. I look at the front entrance wishing to see him walking out, finished. But he’s not there and I worry that he’s still in the waiting room, not even in the chair yet.

I get out of the car and snake my way to the back of the parking lot, which is mostly empty, save an abandoned-looking flatbed trailer and a super large pickup truck straddling two spaces.

There’s a small ladder thing on the back of the trailer so I climb up onto the well-worn wooden boards and pace the length of it, up and back. The extra three feet of height change everything and I look out over the lot with new eyes. So many cars are white or silver (or gray). Way more than half. There are almost no true colors. One stretch has eight white or silver cars in a row. I imagine there are a row of teeth but then someone comes and drives one away so I pretend they were pulling a tooth. I search out more car/teeth scenarios. A black SUV becomes dead, rotting molar. A dented, fenderless Saturn becomes a cavity-laden canine. A gold Chrysler becomes a coffee-stained incisor. I am stumped by the blue Prius and give up the game.

I climb down and return to my car, a silver (gray) Camry, and close my eyes. Suddenly the car next to me fires to life. Startled because I didn’t think anyone was in it, I look over and it’s empty. I’m relived but confused. I turn around and find a guy talking on his phone heading towards me and the adjacent car. He must have one of those remote starters. He doesn’t seem to notice me (thank god!) as he gets in and takes off.

I stare at the empty space next to me. Someone’s gonna pull into it and wonder what I’m doing sitting in my car. I don't like it, so I head for the building to see if it has a public bathroom and I kinda need to pee.

The lobby of the building is smaller that I expect. To the left is a security desk with a guard sitting there, to the right, a small waiting area with a love seat and two padded chairs positioned around a coffee table I’m sure is from Ikea. A central hall leads to the elevators (for the whopping four stories) and eventually a back exit.

I approach the security desk scanning the directory for the dentist: Moore & Lessing Dentistry, 3B. I ask for the bathroom.

‘I’m sorry, we don’t have a public restroom,’ the guard says. It takes me a second to register her words. Instead of replying, I make a face and head for the door, quietly mocking her, ‘we don’t have a public bathroom.’

My need to pee isn’t bad, but if I return to the car I’ll just dwell on it until I’ll really have to go. I remember that there was a Dunkin Donuts not too far away – I could even walk to it. And I decide to.

The Dunkin Donuts is nearly empty so after using the bathroom I feel obligated to buy something. I consider getting him something but he’s probably not going to be able to eat or drink for a while so I just get myself a caramel macchiato. Why not? I deserve it. For doing a favor for a friend.

A friend. Is that what he is? Is that what I am? Why did I agree to give him a ride? I wonder if I was too quick, too eager, to reply that I could give him a ride. Was he excited that it was me who replied? Did he care? He didn’t seem to care on the way there and he didn’t even say how long he thought it would take. He just expected me to wait. Is he just using me? What am I doing, waiting like a dog for its master to get home. I’m not waiting another minute. I rush back to the parking lot.

My head is down as I search for the keys in my purse and when I look up I don’t see my car. I almost panic, but realize that a van has parked in the space next to my car and is obstructing my view. Rounding the back of the van I let out a quick ‘Yeep!’ Sprawled out across the roof of my car from the passenger side are two arms and a head.

The head rises up, it’s him. ‘Oh hey. Dare yoo aw.’ He looks really out of it.

‘How was it?’ I ask.

‘Oh. Id wa` fine.’ His eyes find me and I redden, hoping my plan to ditch him isn’t written on my face.

I quickly unlock the car and we get in. He slowly buckles his seatbelt, still feeling the Novocaine or gas or whatever. I watch him obliviously feeling his lips with his finger, seeming to check that they’re still there. I feel petty, a pang of guilt vibrates from deep inside me.

He looks over and finds my stare. He ceases the lip touching and tries to smile, ‘I can’ fill my liss,’ he says, pointing at his mouth for clarification. Then he notices my nearly empty macchiato. ‘Oh, I wooda bod you coffee – you kno`, as danks.’ I smile and start the car.

The drive home is quiet (NPR is easy to tune out), he in a daze, me questioning if the sugar and caffeine could explain it or if I was just crazy. Would I really have done it, I wonder. I doubt it. Even if I’d gotten to the car before him and left I would’ve come back as soon as he called or texted. He’s a friend and friends give each other rides to the dentist.

He thanks me again when we get to his place. After an awkward over-the-center-console hug he gets out. I drive off right away, not waiting for him to get inside. He’ll be fine, I figure. Besides, I already hafta to pee again.

The cat would not stop meowing. Day, night, food aplenty, fresh litter, half an apartment floor’s worth of toys, it didn’t matter. Constant, sustained meows.

There wasn’t much that could be done. The cat was unimpeachable, permanent in their lives for the rest of its life. It was her grandfather’s cat you see long before they’d met and slowly became entrenched in each other’s lives and moved in together, she’d made a promise to her grandfather: when the time came, she’d take care of the cat. The time had come and the cat was now hers. Theirs.

At first she chalked up the meowing to the trauma of relocating. ‘He’s still getting used to our place,’ she’d say. Then it became, ‘He just misses my grandfather.’ What could he say? Cats don’t give shit who feeds them and shovels their turds from the litter box? It was her last connection to her longest surviving grandparent. It’ll end, he told himself, some day.

What perplexed him almost as much as how the cat’s meowing-chords hadn’t snapped was how she didn’t seem bothered by the incessant meowing at all. She slept through it and escaped to work most of the day, free from the offense. (Couldn’t a cat become hoarse?)

Finally her goto excuse became, ‘It’s sweet. He’s saying he loves us.’ But he knew better. In the recent weeks the cat had been finding new favorite spots to sleep and clean itself. They were his spots: his side of the bed, his chair in the TV room. The cat wasn’t pleased to simply meow him crazy, it wanted to take over his place in the apartment.

They watched TV with the volume so loud now. He remembered that so had her grandfather, though he thought it had to do with hearing loss. Now he reconsidered.

One evening as they watched TV, them on the couch, the cat in his chair meowing, she mistakenly flipped to FoxNews, just for a second but long enough for him to notice. ‘Wait. Go back,’ he said.

‘What?’ She leaned closer to hear him.

‘Put it back on Fox News,’ he said de-libe-rate-ly.

‘Eww. Why?’

‘Just put it on, please.’ She obliged. He sat up and lifted his arms halfway, the way someone who thought they heard a faraway cry would. ‘Do you hear it?’ he asked.

‘Ugh. They always say crap like that. They’re terrible,’ she replied.

‘No, no. Not the TV. The cat. It stopped meowing.’ They looked at the cat in his chair. It stared dead-straight at the screen of the television. He whispered right next to her ear, ‘Change the channel.’ She went up one station to CNN.

‘Meeeeooooowwwwww. Meeeeeoooooowwwwww.’

‘Change it back.’

‘LIBERALS WANT TO TAKE AWA ------’

‘Again.’

‘NEXT ON AC360----’

‘Meeeooooowwww.’

‘Back.’

‘Coming up on the Ingraham-----’ The cat stared silently.

‘What the---?’ He was stunned. She was astonished.

‘Grandpa watched basically nothing but FoxNews, like 24/7.’

‘Did he condition the cat to it?’

‘What?’

‘Try lowering the volume.’ She lowered the volume to a normal level. The cat remained quiet and rapt. ‘Amazing.’

They left the TV on that night and he got his first good night’s sleep in a month. The following day he did some experimenting. Reverse mortgage commercials on FoxNews, silent cat. Rheumatoid arthritis medication commercial on CNN, meows. He was baffled. He also learned that if FoxNews were playing he could sit in his chair with the cat on his lap peacefully. Previously, if he even tried to pet the cat it would strike a paw, nails out, at him.

So he watched a lot of FoxNews and grew very fond of the cat. ‘Wow,’ she exclaimed one day. ‘I think he likes you more than he likes me.’

‘You’re goddam right he does. He knows you’re giving money to those baby killers at Planned Parenthood.’

‘What?! We’ve been giving money to Planned Parenthood for years.’ The cat looked at him. Then he looked at her.

‘Well, I suppose it’s time we reconsider that decision.’

She cocked an eye. ‘Have you just been sitting there watching FoxNews all day?’

‘No! I had to get up to feed this little freeloader here and I can’t stand that Pinko Chris Wallace. I go check Breitbart in the bedroom during his show.’

Her face grew concerned. ‘Maybe we should try a different channel. The cat hasn’t been meowing much lately.’

‘Fine. Whatever.’ And he trailed off muttering about snowflakes.

One night the following week she came home to find him in front of the TV in the dark. The cat was nowhere to be seen even after she flicked the lights on. ‘Where’s the cat?’ He grumbled not knowing. ‘Are you wearing a cardigan?...and slippers? Where did those come from?’

More grumbling, ‘I found them in the attic.’

‘And where’s the cat?’

‘He wanted to stay in the attic.’ She didn’t bother following up, instead she made for the attic.

She found the cat sleeping on top of a box labeled ‘Grandpa’s clothes.’ She stroked the cat and thought, he’s wearing my grandfather’s clothes.

She collected the cat and returned to the TV room. Hannity was railing against an eight-year-old who dressed as AOC for Halloween. ‘...You didn’t earn that candy, little girl!...’

‘Are you wearing my grandfather’s clothes?’

‘I am. He was really onto something.’ He emphasized his satisfaction with the clothes with some tugs and strokes. He stayed in the clothes for a week, which he and the cat also spent much of in the chair in front of the TV, tuned to FoxNews.

They stopped having sex. No only did he express no desire but neither could she get in the mood while he dressed like her grandpa. She also noticed the cat filling out. She never saw him refill the cat’s food dish but it was always full.

One evening she arrived home and found a big container of treats placed by the unused cat food. The container was open and though she didn’t know what the huge container looked like full it seemed to her noticeably unfull.

‘How many treats are you giving the cat?’ she asked walking into the TV room. ‘How many?’ she repeated.

‘I don’t know. A few I suppose. He likes them.’ the cat eyed her from its roost on his lap. Was she crazy or was the cat giving her the evil eye, she wondered. But then reckoned that cats always looked like that. She returned to the kitchen with the treats, took a marker from the junk drawer and made a subtle mark indicating the current level of treats in the container.

The following evening the mark was well above an inch higher than the level of treats. A quick guestimate put the number of treats given that day over a hundred. He’s going to kill the cat, she worried.

She confronted him with her concern and he denied her claim. ‘I didn’t give the cat a hundred treats today, don’t be silly. Besides, did you see how small they are? He can handle it.’

‘Look how fat he’s getting.’ She went to lift the cat from his lap but the cat hissed at her.

‘That’s right little guy. Don’t take any of her nonsense.’ And he petted the cat. She stood and watched. The cat seemed to be intentionally not looking at her. And he, well he became so engrossed with the cat she wasn’t sure that he realized she was still there.

Soon there was an odor in the TV room. One she had associated with old people. He was looking older, not physically, no wrinkles or droopy ears, but in expression and mannerisms. He now fell asleep in front of the TV most nights, usually before ten.

‘I think you’ve developed some really unhealthy habits.’ She told him.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘You watch a lot of TV and hardly leave the TV room, let alone the apartment.’

‘I’m looking after the cat. He doesn’t like to be alone.’

‘He does not care. He’s a cat.’

‘Oh, come on. You’re being hysterical.’ He looked down at her crouch as if he could tell if she was menstrual.

‘Fuck you!’ She stormed off.

The next day she went to her parents. She told him before she left but he didn’t respond and it wasn’t totally clear to her that he’d heard her.

‘...and it’s like he only cares about the cat. Like I don’t exist.’ She brought her parents up to speed.

‘Sounds familiar,’ her father said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Your grandmother said similar things not long after they first got the cat.’

‘Really?’

‘Really. She complained that just after the arrival of the cat your grandfather stopped wanting to do their usual activities. They didn’t go to bridge club or Rotary. Eventually your grandfather stopped going to church.’

‘Grandpa went to church?’

‘He did. Before the cat.’

‘Wait. When did they get the cat?’

‘Well, let’s see. Grandma passed six years ago and it was a year before that.’

‘Wow. I hardly remember that, them getting the cat. I must’ve been at college.’

‘We barely visited once they got the cat. Until she got sick of course.’

She remembered when her grandmother got sick and how quickly things deteriorated. She remembered visiting her at the hospital and that her grandfather was never there. ‘Did grandpa spend a lot of time with grandma at the hospital?’

Her father thought about it. ‘You know I don’t remember being there with him except for the first time, when she’d just gone in. But we scheduled it so that some one would be there every day.’

‘You alternated days to visit?’

‘Yeah, that’s right. I remember your grandmother lost it so quickly she always asked when your grandfather was coming and I’d always say, “he’ll be here tomorrow.”’

‘So you never saw him there?’

‘Oh I’m sure I did. I must have.’ She remained skeptical.

The next day she asked where her grandparents had gotten the cat. Her father didn’t remember. Her mother recalled that it just showed up one day. ‘As I recall, it just showed up one day. Your grandparents tried to see if anyone had lost a cat. I remember making photocopies for them at the office.’

‘And they were at the house on the Cape by that point?’ she asked.

‘Yes, they were.’

It was probably nothing but she noticed a certain unease growing in her mind about the cat. After dinner and helping with the dishes she did some Googling. Searches like ‘Cape Cod cat,’ ‘weird cat story Cape Cod,’ and so forth. Searching for anything cat proved almost pointless. All cat searches resulted in thousands of memes, videos, cute anecdotes and adoption sites. It was almost impossible to wade through all the nonsense and find anything substantive. Until she tried a news search. This filtered out most of the memes and videos but it was still a deluge of stories of heroic cats, adoption drives and reviews of charity events. She added a time filter for anything older than seven years. That’s when she found it.

The story itself wasn’t about a cat per se, but a cat was mentioned. As were some eerily familiar details. A man, recently a widower, was found dead in his house. The house was a mess of cat shit, food cans, bags of cat treats, but the thing that really stood out to her was that the neighbors initially called the authorities because the TV volume was so high they could hear it. And the article said that when the police entered the premises, the TV was on FoxNews. She checked the date, October 27. That was just over seven years ago.

‘Mom, do you remember when you made those photocopies?’ She asked walking into the kitchen. Her mother lowered her magazine.

‘Just after the cat showed up.’

‘Right, but what time of year, what month?’

Her mother thought. ‘It must have been early November. Someone asked about the cat and something to do with Halloween.’

‘November. Seven years ago. You’re sure?’

‘Well, yes honey. Why does it matter?’

‘I’ve got to go home.’ She was out the door and in the car in a blur.

‘Is this because of the cat?’ her mother yelled at the car from the front porch.

She busted through the front door. It reeked and trash was strewn about everywhere. She ran to the TV room. There he was, in the chair, the TV on FowNews, stiff and cold. His face frozen in a gruesome expression. He smelled of shit and circus peanuts. She called the police then looked for the cat. It was gone.

She designed the missing cat sign to look like a regular missed cat sign, though a wanted poster seemed more appropriate. But how would that go over? ‘Wanted. Medium sized tuxedo cat. If seen do not approach. Dangerous. Suspect in multiple deaths. No reward. Answers to no one.’ It would merely bring plenty of unwanted attention and unanswerable questions.

His official cause of death, according to the death certificate, was suffocation. No obstruction or restraint was ever found. The medical examiner said it was like he just stopped breathing. She knew the truth: the cat had killed him and it would kill again.

She checked the shelters regularly for six months and reposted the signs every two weeks, expanding the radius of the search each time. Nothing ever came from it. She had done what she could but figured it was time to move on. She found a place and moved out of her parents’ house. She got lonely but wasn’t ready to date. Instead she got a dog.