Member-only story
Isolation’s Disparate Tug
The obviously a-skosh-more-than-slightly balding man in flip-flops said to his date, “I’m like whatever the equivalent of a Foodie is to music.”
She might’ve been impressed, or was just making that fake-amused-reaction-face that people make when something unpleasant is forced upon them but they feel the need to (at least temporarily) make it seem as if they are, well, amused. She watched his thick eyebrows flutter like bottlebrush above his saccadic eyes, as he attempted to look everywhere except at her.
“Oh. That’s…interesting…”
She let her voice trail off, to make whatever it was she was doing more pointed and deliberate than it really was. Feigning attention was getting to be the par for this particular course, here. And they hadn’t even moved on to the main one yet. She found herself listing (to herself) all the things she’d rather be doing than being on this date right now between moments of her timed, droll responses to this moron’s Dating Game banter.
“Lightly buttering a piece of burnt toast on a piece of crinkled tin foil.”
“What…?”
She caught herself. She must’ve mumbling aloud.
“Nothing. I’m just…my mind, well, it tends to wander. I’m an odd egg and an even duck.”
