You woke up beside Linda, your fortune-teller who
claimed to be Gypsy, but when you said, “Roma?” she didn’t know what you were
talking about so you considered her claim dubious. Still, there were,
obviously, things you liked about her. She’d been in the middle of a poker game
when you got there last night and she’d handed you a can of Pilsner before
you’d even sat down, so you’d never been able to ask your question. Where’d
you lose the ring to? You shook your head when you thought about it, then you
stopped shaking your head when you realized how badly it rattled your
beer-shrunk brain.
“The TV,” Linda said in her sleep, as if in answer
to your unarticulated question. “Behind it.”
You knew, relatively speaking, that the Queen
streetcar was quiet at nine a.m., but each breath of hydraulic breaks and
rattle of the cars’ windows stuck pins in your skull.
The apartment would need to be tidied and aired
out before your girlfriend got home. You’d had a strange week; well, two
strange nights—the one with Linda and one earlier this week with your best
friend Aaron. That night is when the apartment got done in, mostly because
Aaron hadn’t been away from his daughter in a week and you were feeling
desperately lonely. That night was the last night you’d seen the ring—you’d
showed it to Aaron who shook his head and asked you if you knew what you were
getting into. You still hadn’t resorted to calling him, though you had some
suspicion that he’d taken the engagement ring to save you from the same fate as
him. Which was crazy, ’cause you knew that actually he was happy.
You were staring at the pile of records teetering
on top of the television mostly because you couldn’t bare the sight—never mind
the smell—of the empties on the coffee table in front of you. Your immobility,
though easy on your hangover, was hard on your guilt. Standing over your LPs
was hard work and your breath was so wet with toxins that you thought you might
puke so you sat down beside the hand-me-down, cathode ray tube unit and rested
your head against its veneer. You wanted some company so you reached around the
front of the TV and hit the power switch. There was neither the familiar
electric snap nor hum of the unit coming to life. You stroked your eyebrows
before looking behind the TV. The plug lay on the ground like an unfinished
thought. In its place in the wall was Aaron’s cell phone charger. You put your
head back against the side of the TV and blindly groped for the charger. Once
it was out, you felt for the TV plug. It was an amusement, finding the wire
then following it with your fingers, feeling for the end. Your hand touched
something cold. Your heart beat like it already knew what it was, but you were
reluctant to agree with your heart. When you held it in front of your eyes, you
let yourself believe that it was the ring. Behind the TV, just like sleeping
Linda said. She was good, eerily. You slid the ring down your pinky, but
couldn’t get it over your second knuckle.
You made coffee then cleaned with the ring halfway
on. When you were done cleaning, you felt just the right type of bad that you
figured a beer would help. You opened two, sat down on the couch and asked
yourself if you were actually ready to propose.
You decided that you were.
Toronto, April-May 2015
Story: Lee Sheppard
Emoji sequence: Jim Guthrie
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