We Are This Way Because

The man and the woman stood there—the man lighting his cigarette and then giving it to the woman to inhale and exhale the dark blue smoke into the crisp, clear air—one ankle crossed over the other from the woman, and both legs out and the butt on the tail of the car, the lower middle one. The woman was facing the man, smiling as if she were having a great time. The man was chuckling, his fingers shaking as he tried lighting another cigarette after the woman, laughing at what he was doing, dropped hers.

Oh well. She smooshed it with her high heel and then the man became serious, lighting it and then giving it to her. The neon blue smoke this time was let out, each cigarette a different color.

“You know,” the man said, “we could do this all day!”             

The woman chuckled. “Yep! We’re the only ones—”

The man’s eyes widened, and hers did, too, after they both looked over and far into the distance.

“Let’s go! Didn't know they'd be on to us so fast!”

The neon and dark blue smoke formed into horses, rearing, impatient for their owners to ride them. “Yee-haw!” They rode and rode, hoping the galloping clouds that were bunnies and geese and unicorns all didn’t evaporate their pets. Ordering his horse to dash faster, the man called back to the woman as to where they were going.

“Watch.”

The man trusted the woman, her neon blue horse galloping a little slower so they were parallel. As the woman made her horse gallop faster, she became the leader, the man right behind her. “Hurry up! They’re right about to be on our tail.”

“Where are the others?”

The man remembered, and then pressed his legs against the sides of his horse as he lit a few more cigarettes to make them attack the cloud animals. Funny thing, these characters. They’re against each other because the cloud bunny, which began smelling smoke when it was pointed out as a bunny, looked down and saw a horse of smoke. It neighed and bucked, but the smell had to be eradicated. So the bunnies called on the unicorns and squirrels and all other cute innocents of the animal world to defeat the deadlies of the world down here. But the man and woman were not interested in changing their ways. Once they decided on running away and marrying and starting a life together, they were not going to give up without a fight. Why they were fighting, they refused to say. But it was important to the bunnies and all other animal world animals. At least the cloud versions.

Anyway, as the couple made it to their stall, the smoke rising from their cigarettes formed into a stall made of smoke. It was hot pink, but their horses enjoyed it. When the couple realized the bunnies and their cloud friends were far off somewhere, they formed a bar out of their own smoke. But it was a real bar. They entered, and stayed awhile.

“Want to run it?” The woman said.

The man thought a while. After the woman returned with some beer and water, the man said, “Um, not if we’re the only ones here. It’ll get lonely.”

“What do we have to do to get people to like us?” The woman said, sitting across from her husband on the other side of the booth table. “Don’t they understand? All our relatives and family left us—”

“Well, if they left us, they wouldn’t have cried out for you to come live close to them. Once you protested, you saw them give up, waving you good-bye!” The man coughed. “Besides—”

“Well, I’m the one marrying you. Aren’t you concerned about your own family?” The woman got up, getting herself some Cola. “Besides, don’t you want to care about your own folks for once? You’re always worried about me, you know? I may leave you one day.”

The man caused the woman to halt in her steps. “Leave me? You’ve all I got!” The man got up and joined his wife, hugging her around the waist. “You’re the best person around. Don’t you consider—”

“Don’t be so sure!” The woman jerked away, getting herself some Coke. The man grumbled to himself as he returned to his seat at the table.

“What was that?” The woman returned, too. She raised her eyebrows. “I do love you. But I don’t want a husband who’s just concerned about me all the time. It’ll get old. Please. Don’t you want to just…” She sipped some Coke, and he looked expectantly at her. “Forget about it all?”

“I am!”

“No—I mean, about responsibility. I mean about the reality that I’m more important to you than you are to yourself. Don’t you ever want to—”

“I’m saying I don’t want to lose you.”

“Then start thinking about how you’re treating me—because it hasn’t been very smart.”

The man stared at her. “Treating you? I—”

“Starting with the cigarettes! I didn’t want to get involved with all this stuff.” She waved her hands around. "I just did it because I wanted you. That’s all.”

“And I—we just want each other, right? Just to live—”

A huge bang happened right outside the bar. The woman bravely went to go see what was up. Some of her horses snorted, fighting some unicorns. Then she saw how the bunnies were butting their heads to get into the bar! What’d they do, order something? No, they wanted to get to the woman. The woman and her man went outside together, but the bunnies, all white clouds, stormed the bar, it evaporating. The man and woman blinked back tears but also pursed their lips.

“It’s okay, it’s okay—”

“If you don’t care, we won’t!”

The man and woman fled upon their horses. Finding somewhere to smoke their cigarettes, they continued, forming one hangout place after another. One day, the bunnies stopped them. Frustrated, they snapped at the bunnies, demanding their horses fight them into water. But the bunnies told the man and woman they didn’t have to.

“Be together?” The woman and man galloped away, finding a place they thought they were alone. A private island, all their own. The man questioned the woman’s morals—as to whether she’d betray him. Would he betray her? She wondered about him. They forced themselves to continue through this mentality, pretending everything was okay. But the more they fled, the more the bunnies pursued them. Until they came upon the cigarettes—the man and woman’s friends. They poured water on them, shaking their ears, which released water onto the cigarettes. The cigarettes became very difficult to smoke.

Still, the couple dove for the wet products, striving in vain to light it so long to give to each other and form horses to evaporate these poor bunnies! When all failed, they threw the cigarettes at the bunnies, but the bunnies dodged every one. They shook their heads, and then dashed away.

The man and woman watched them go, and then dashed off on their old horses who were galloping up to them and then slowed to a stop to let them on. Galloping away, the man and woman thought about whether they were into each other for the cigarettes or each other’s sake. When both found them alone, they stayed alone for many years. Coming together again a little later in life, they didn’t know whether they should continue their marriage.

The couple fought over their decisions, every choice becoming a burden to make. Then the couple compromised—one couple would throw the cigarettes away while the other would evaporate all the horses. Then only could they be together for real. The man killed all the horses, while the woman trashed all the cigarettes. Then they walked somewhere—I think a beach—with hands held tight.

Then the man died.

The woman died soon after, but the bunnies and all their friends hoped they hadn’t forgotten their lives together here on earth. Wherever they were, they were together for love’s sake, right?

The man woke up first. The woman woke up after the man shook her. “Get up, honey. We’re done. We can’t keep fighting this problem anymore. Please partner with me forever. Please?”

“I can’t.” The woman walked away from her man, many months of him trying to convince her to stay with him. She was adamant. He would live alone, her things reminding him of her constantly. All he did was pursue her. The bunnies were there to offer him a ride to her house, but he declined. Those horses are a lot faster. The man was walking by a shop along a busy street one day in town. He stopped, and looked. There, in the glass, lay a pack of cigarettes.

He turned away, heading her way. Panting when he got to her house, he knocked on the door.

“Yes? Come in!” But he stood there, hands sliding into pockets.

She went up to the door. “Come in—” She stopped, halted. Looking at him, she blinked and then opened the door slowly. “Come in.” Her words were sticky, like she was in jello or trying to talk through jello.

“No.”

“You come all this way to say no?” She opened the door, letting herself out onto her front porch. He jerked a nod.

“Yeah!”

Then he turned around, heading home—wherever that was. The woman watched him go, but she didn’t know whether this feeling was real or not. The man didn’t look back, even once. He panted when he came upon his own home in the woods. The crickets chirped, but the man jerked away from such an insect as he unlocked and entered his house. Crashing onto the couch, the man flipped on the TV. It didn’t hold his interest for long. Snapping it off, he went to bed after reading some emails.

The morning was when the man’s eyes opened to the woman. She held up her hand, showing her ring. Then she pointed to his ring. This was all done in silence. The man watched as she rounded his bed and went through the open door. Exiting the house, the woman didn’t look at the man once. Going home, she began her day, showering and then going to work. A bar was nearby, but she walked past it to her office job a little ways away. Coming back home, the woman sniffed and then made herself some dinner. She sat and ate it, chewing thoughtfully.

The man copied her, unbeknownst to her. He had begun his day, going to the local gym to teach high school gym. Teaching it gave him a mind of his own. He liked that. They, the couple I mean, hadn’t seen each other in a long time—months went by. The couple then crossed paths, seeming to live right on the other side of each other. Across the street from each other.

Soon, the couple became popular, money flowing into their homes. Houses became mansions, their own private islands of yachts and boats. Wealth was their child, each of their loves. The man and woman grew old, and then they saw each other. At the local bar.

The man and woman each got up, said hello stiffly and then parted ways. They died.

The man and woman returned to the bar of smoke. Those bunnies could chase them forever. Soon, they’d give up. Soon, they’d evaporate.

Soon, the bunnies gave up. But the couple did not on each other.

They lived—seemingly forever—at that bar, not realizing that life was fading before their very eyes. Literally. One day, when the woman was up and out of bed, the man got up, too, after the woman shook her head, a worried expression on her face. Pointing outside, she beckoned her beloved husband, who got up instantly. They both looked outside, stared, actually. Turning to each other, they both—

“No!”

Both man and woman jerked up from bed, their eyes bulging. “No!”

The cigarettes were gone. The horses had died. The couple lived their lives.

Then they—

Woke up again, the woman waking her husband up, a beautiful smile on her face. The man, grinning, got out of bed, and they danced slowly. The woman looked outside, and smiled, telling her husband to look outside as well.

“Sunny!”

The woman shuddered. “I can’t—”

“Think about any of that anymore.”

The bunnies had returned. “But you still buy those cigarettes—”

“No, I pass by.” The man lied. Hiding some behind his back after pulling some from a drawer, the man looked at his wife. The wife told her husband to do something about this, and he lit one, the smoke becoming a bright orange coyote. Charging at these creatures, the nasty creature strived to tear them apart. The bunnies ran away, the coyotes chasing them.

The couple took off, their own lives together, their own smoky lives together in the bar they created. They lived like this for forever, it seemed. They had each other. They didn’t want anyone else. At least not when they were with each other. Oftentimes, they had guests and friends come, but they came and went, never any family. Family wasn’t important anymore. Family, the man and woman said to each other, were like people they didn’t need to contend with. Families fought. They weren’t interested in the drama anymore. They were just there. At least that’s how the couple saw their own families coming together, like they’d seen them for so long.

So the man and woman shut the doors whenever other couples they knew were coming—their relatives from all over. Friends and guests at the bar were always welcome. But the woman and man vowed to make each other their own relatives. They’d be together, forever.

The woman forgot about what she said about betrayal, and the man forgot about that, too.

The bunnies found them, and told them their coyotes were gone. The couple didn’t care. They were happy together. Solitary life forever. The places around them began to fade. They started to worry—would they fade away as well?

They panicked. Would they wake up again to find each other separated or in a casket or divorced or…

The woman and man begged to be set free from this endless nightmare. The bunnies told them to stop their abusive behavior towards them. They said they would. They promised. They vowed. They even offered to bring the bunnies some Coke and other drinks from the bar! Anything to shut them up.

“And that lie?”

The man bobbed his head. The woman grasped his hand, and he clutched hers. “Please!” Their faces were of the pitiful kind. They whimpered, too. “You don’t understand—we love each other. We couldn’t bear living without each other. That’s why we woke up like we did.”

Secretly, the man and woman didn’t understand why cloud bunnies were following them around, telling them to get rid of the dumb cigarettes. If they were such a problem…? The man and woman wanted to just throw their hands all over the bunnies, evaporating them all at once. The man and woman looked at the bunnies and told them should they come back for them, they’d evaporate them themselves.

“You keep chasing us,” the man threatened, “and you’ll be a puddle of water!”

The woman nodded. “Please leave us alone.” She snickered. “What do you care? How do you have the advantage over us?” Then they started laughing, sniggering at them. Finally, they calmed down, having a good laugh—a good mockery—of the bunnies. But the couple hated to see the very sight of the bunnies. They started discussing which cigarette to use, and the man brought them all out, the woman’s eyes going wide with anticipation.

“The…fuchsia one!”

“Okay!”

Both of them used cigarettes, the fuchsia hawk and neon green poison dart frog threatening the bunnies, soaring above them and hopping around. But they didn’t dare touch the bunnies. For some reason, the bunnies just watched them hop and soar. For some reason, the bunnies didn’t care.

After the bunnies looked at the couple, the couple went back to fake apologies.

But were those real tears? Besides, if they didn’t care, wouldn’t they never care? They were together. Isn’t that all that mattered? The bunnies never found out. Because it didn’t. They just hoped the couple had understood them. They kept waking up. They kept getting out of bed, seeing each other all the time (at least in knowledge) and the cigarettes were all around.

The couple made a pact—and kept it. Those cigarettes were being handed out everywhere in a place where they went. The couple, terrified, discussed where they’d go. The woman wanted somewhere beachy. The man wanted somewhere in the country. They found a place they agreed upon. But then they saw that bars were going to prevent anyone who doesn’t stay around for the Challenge Night, where cigarettes were bought at contested prices.

“What do we do?” The man asked his beloved wife.

“We keep looking, dear. We don’t give up. We keep going. Even if those stupid bunnies come back, we keep going. Because we matter. We matter to each other!” And as if they would disappear forever from each other, the man and woman grabbed each other into a tight hug, and then held each other’s hands, looking deeply into each other’s eyes. Shaking her head, the woman promised she’d never let go of him, and he vowed he’d never lose her, either.

“Those are just dreams!” They said in unison. “Never to be repeated.”

So they packed up and left. To a private island, where they worked and lived. Forever.

Together.