Flash Fiction: Are You Lonely Tonight

Dan had never had sex with anyone but Stephanie, and now she wanted a divorce. She'd been acting different, more so than she'd ever before acted. Dan and Stephanie live in a fruit-cake town, not "fruit cake" like someone's granny used to bake, that would have been ok; but West-Coast-bastion-for-der-Brikenstock-early-retiree type fruit-cake town. Stephanie had taken to hanging around with grannies who believed they could move tables with their minds. This activity, mind over matter, has a cult name, but it isn't important because it will not again be mentioned. Dan is a biologist. So is Stephanie, for that matter, and Dan, because he wants to be egalitarian, like everyone here, wants to understand how a biologist can believe old women can move tables with their minds; he's not patronizing Stephanie nor doubting the old ladies' abilities. Dan is seeking answers by studying Zen with a gay Zen Master, who talks too much, and is covered with tattoos and piercings. The Zen Master's partner is x-military, and looks it. They fly the American Flag. Dan also fears it was the knitting group, which he's taken to calling the "stitch-n-bitch" group, which is rather cliché, but no less apt, that led Stephanie astray. Perhaps, he thinks objectively, it was the visits to the porn shops in the nearby big city with the newly divorced fellow stitcher, Lois. Maybe. Nonetheless, Dan has his own way of coping with Stephanie's final decision, which is to divorce; and, he is, therefore, determined to, as we say, move on.

This is where I come in. I'm Tonja S. Gooding, but beyond that there is little else you need to know about me.