Photo: James Benzschawel | flickr.com/jkbenwhatever Used under the terms of his Creative Commons license
n Tanzer
Works
There is no Claire. It’s true that she doesn’t always come home. It’s also true that I stopped worrying about that a while ago. Still this is different. There’s a storm coming and what if she can’t get home, but wants to? Then what? “Storm’s coming,” Claire said. “So,” I said. “So, they say it will be the Storm of the Century,” she said. “And,” I said, knowing she wanted to leave and would find any excuse she could to do so. “We may need stuff, food, or cigarettes, alcohol,” she said. “We have tequila,” I said. “It’s not enough,” she said. And I suppose that’s the rub. Nothing is enough anymore, not me certainly. “Go ahead,” I said, grabbing her shoulders and staring into her dead eyes. “What?” she said. “Everything is fucked,” I said. “That’s the storm talking,” she said, “end of the world shit. Let it go.” So I do. I let it go, and then I let her go. But she never quite came back.
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