He hasn’t left yet—at least not physically. Steam rises from the lasagna on their dinner plates, but his demeanor’s so icy that she shivers. They chew and swallow, chew and swallow, ad nauseam, until she dares disrupt the pattern by asking about his day. Mouth stuffed with pasta, he offers no reply. After a final forkful, he scrapes his chair against the linoleum and mumbles something about watching TV in the other room. The familiar sounds of the ballgame fill the air: the crack of the bat, the roar of the crowd, the deafening silence of defeat.
Lori Cramer’s short prose has appeared in Boston Literary Magazine, FewerThan500.com, 50-Word Stories, Ink In Thirds, Postcard Shorts, Pudding Magazine, Rum Punch Press, A Quiet Courage, Seven by Twenty, Unbroken Journal, and the 11th Annual Writer’s Digest Short Short Story Competition Collection. Website: http://loricramerfiction.wordpress.com. Twitter: @LCramer29.