Stan preferred whole milk, and yet he found himself reaching mechanically for the gallon of 2% embellished with a stoic farm cow. The dairy fridge was bisected by a column that separated 2% from whole milk, dieters from lovers of life, and Stan from her. She was not a cow. Buuut she showed about as much interest as one-- grazing apathetically upon stuttering boys' hearts. Utter nonsense. He wondered what Marcus Aurelius would think. "I think you're a tool," said Marcus Aurelius. The cow on the gallon jug judged his lack of civic virtue. Since she had moved in, Stan had acquired twelve stress pimples and a crusty rash on his forearm.
Cressida raised the twenty-pound dumbbell. She paused on a full contraction before lowering her left hand. A drop of sweat paraded down her forehead, dodging the fortress of her eyebrows and landing triumphantly in her tear duct. She blinked. “I can smell the puke on your breath from here,” said the sweat drop. She finished her set. She needed to focus, to ignore her badbrain and go home to Stan. “You’re the queen,” said the wave of endorphins streaming from her pituitary gland. Deciding to move in with him took three months and four days: approximately fifty-five billable hours. His palms were strikingly clammy-- she reminded herself that she enjoyed seafood; she enjoyed seafood and cheap rent.
They sat on the stained mauve monstrosity she inherited from her old techbro roommates. “I got you something,” stammered Stan. He pulled a sinuous emerald object from his sustainable grocery bag. As Cressida squinted, she eyeballed what looked like a jolly rancher. Jolly Rancher moved on its own and stared straight at her. “Don’t you fret chil’, I’m not as sour as I look.” Stan placed it in her lap, knowing better than to expect an enthusiastic gesture of appreciation. The sour candy removed its wrapper seductively, and the liberated wrapper folded itself into a crane that flew around the candy as it commenced a well-rehearsed lap dance. The corner of her mouth crinkled up. “I underestimated you, Stan.”
For a narrow few days every year, Svalbard turned into a mud puddle. If you learn anything from this tale, learn this: do not I repeat do not! ditch a wizard bath house without paying. Cressida sat in the corner of a prefab mobile home barely insulated enough for arctic living. She stared at the soggy ground ahead, remembering her fondness for jumping in mud puddles as a child. She saw Stan stumble, splashing mud all over his overalls. “Ouch,” said Svalbard. Cressida stared at her Thinkpad's screen, index finger hovering over the ‘Enter’ key. Badbrain was expanding. An overgrowth in her tense little noggin. Stan ran in, chest expanding with deep, rapid inhalations. “Where do we put all of this?” asked Cressida, her face as stoic as the cow’s. “In Tim Berners-Lee’s web,” he replied. “Yes… An infinite chamber… A merger of the private and the public until the two are no longer separable… A boundless chamber pot for the shit in our heads.” The giant green Jolly Rancher on the cabinet smiled at her.
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