Rehearsal

The dream started with pigeons.

They were everywhere, swarming like bees, flapping around in a storm of feathers and judging stares. One landed on his head. Another pooped directly onto the small velvet ring box in his hand.

Then came the child. A sticky-fingered, juice-stained toddler pointed at him and screamed, “That man’s crying!”

Which was accurate.

Ariana stood ten feet away in a yellow dress, the sun haloing her like some kind of proposal goddess. But she didn’t move. Her face was unreadable. Possibly pitying. Possibly confused. Possibly melting, wait, no. That was mascara. She blinked slowly, like he was a museum exhibit.

He opened his mouth to speak. Forgot the speech. Forgot his name. Forgot everything except the fact that his knee hurt and his armpits were leaking.

Then the ring rolled out of the box. Clink. Clink. Down the path. Over the curb. Toward the sewer grate.

“No, no no no!”

He dove. He missed.

And just before the ring disappeared into the drain forever, Ariana said the words he would remember until he died.

“We need to talk.”

He jolted awake, damp with sweat, tangled in a blanket that had wrapped itself around him like a burrito of shame. He blinked at the ceiling.

“Okay,” he muttered, “no more late-night pizza and engagement anxiety.”

He checked the time. 8:42 AM.

Proposal day.

It started going wrong immediately.

First, the coffee.

He tried to make it himself, some misguided attempt to be romantic and self-sufficient. Ariana had a fancy French press she treated like a family heirloom. He poured too fast. The lid exploded. Coffee grounds sprayed the counter, his shirt, the cat.

The cat would not be forgiving.

Then the ring.

He had hidden it in the freezer, behind a bag of peas. Because what better place for eternal love than next to frozen legumes?

Except now it was… gone.

“Peas?” he whispered. “Don’t betray me.”

He rummaged. Found it wedged inside a bag of corn, somehow.

Then the speech.

He couldn’t find it. He’d handwritten it on the back of a grocery receipt and now it was missing. Probably in the trash. Or the freezer. Or on fire.

By the time he arrived at the park where he’d planned to propose, the exact spot where she’d once said, “This place feels like forever,” he was sweaty, under-caffeinated, and carrying the ring in his sock for safekeeping. (Don’t ask.)

Ariana was already there. Waiting. Reading a book. A yellow dress again. Déjà vu rolled over him like a wave.

“Hey!” he called.

She looked up. Smiled. Closed the book.

The pigeons arrived in formation.

He approached cautiously. The universe held its breath.

Then, the sneeze.

He’d forgotten his seasonal allergies. Pollen was high. The sneeze took him mid-sentence and nearly threw him into the bushes. He tried to recover. She handed him a tissue. He thanked her and dropped it immediately into the open ring box.

Classy.

He managed to get through one line of his proposal speech (“You’re the person who makes burnt toast taste gourmet”) when a rogue bird dive-bombed the fountain behind them, causing a splash of mossy water to hit his shoulder.

Then came the sound.

Clink. Clink.

The ring. Out of the box. Onto the pavement.

It rolled.

He lunged.

It hit the edge of the walkway.

He gasped.

Ariana stood.

The ring… stopped.

Right against her foot.

She picked it up. Looked at it. Then looked at him.

“We need to talk,” she said.

He panicked.

“Wait, no, don’t say that! I know this looks bad but I love you and I swear I had a plan and birds are demons and,”

She knelt down beside him.

“No, no,” she said, laughing. “I meant… we need to talk about how terrible you are at surprises.”

He blinked.

She held out the ring. “Are you proposing?”

His mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.

And then, like in the dream, he hesitated.

His courage drained out of his toes. A kid yelled something in the distance. His palms were sweating. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. He hadn’t even said the line about her being the reason he believed in love and low-fat yogurt.

She waited.

He looked at the ring. Then at her.

Then… he shook his head. Just slightly. Like he might be sick.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

She smiled. Soft. Not surprised. Not mad. Just… sad.

She stood up, dusted off her dress, and handed the ring back.

“We should get lunch,” she said gently. “No pressure.”

And that was it.

The years that followed came quietly, like gray dust on a forgotten bookshelf.

At first, things were fine. Almost normal. They agreed it wasn’t the right time. They stayed friends. Then less-than-friends. Then just… people who used to laugh in the same bed.

He moved to a new apartment, an “open concept” studio with “vintage tile” that looked suspiciously like water damage. The walls were beige. Not cream. Not eggshell. Beige, like a waiting room.

The plants all died within a week.

Radish came next.

A rescue mutt with sad eyes and a limp. The adoption center said he’d been through “a lot.” They didn't specify what. He hated stairs, vacuums, and specifically him. Every morning Radish would sit across the room and sigh deeply, like he had expected more from this life.

They shared an unspoken understanding, two bachelors riding out the mediocrity.

Dating apps happened.

There was a woman who ran a beet farm. One who sold haunted dolls. One who asked if his “aura was open to cosmic reinvention.”

No one knew how to make toast correctly.

No one made him feel like she had, like he’d been seen, and somehow not found lacking.

Work was work.

He stayed at the same mid-level project coordinator job for twelve more years.

He got very good at making slideshows and pretending to laugh at Dave’s jokes in the break room.

One day, he had an idea for a business: Shower Socks.

Socks. That you wear. In the shower.

For “emotional comfort.”

Radish stared at him when he said it out loud. Got up. Left the room.

He made a prototype. It disintegrated on first contact with water.

She got married.

He saw it online. Someone had posted a photo, Ariana in a meadow somewhere, barefoot, laughing. She looked like joy had grown around her.

He clicked away and spent the rest of the night organizing his junk drawer by category.

He didn’t cry. Not that night.

He took up rowing.

Not real rowing, indoor. In a gym that smelled like rubber mats and regret. He liked the rhythm. Forward, back. Forward, back. Like you were going somewhere but never actually had to arrive.

Every year, on the anniversary of “The Day,” he went to the same park bench. Just to sit.

The fountain still worked. The pigeons were still jerks.

Once, he brought the ring. Not to propose. Just to remember. It still sparkled in the light. He tucked it into his coat again and went home.

He got older.

His hair grayed at the temples. His back started doing that mystery pop thing when he got out of chairs.

Eventually Radish died.

He didn’t get another dog.

Didn’t want to risk being outloved again.

He never stopped thinking about her.

It wasn’t constant, like a drumbeat. More like a familiar song that played every now and then. In a grocery aisle. On a Tuesday. In the quiet space between brushing his teeth and turning out the light.

What would she have said about that dream?

Would she have laughed?

Would she have stayed?

He died on a Thursday.

A neighbor found him. Peaceful. Blankets neat. TV remote still in hand.

He didn’t leave a note.

But in his final dream, he said something.

It wasn’t profound.

It was:

“I should’ve done it.”

Then he woke up.

He sat bolt upright in bed.

Alive.

Breathing hard, heart drumming like a squirrel in a coffee can.

His hand flew to his chest. No gray chest hair. No stiff joints. No ghost of Radish sighing in existential disappointment. Just cotton pajamas and the faint smell of last night’s pizza.

The clock blinked.

8:42 AM.

He stared at it for a full ten seconds before whispering:

“Oh, come on.”

This time, when the coffee exploded across the counter and burned his forearm, he didn’t scream.

He grinned.

“Well hello, old friend,” he muttered, nodding at the French press like it owed him money.

The cat gave him a look. He gave it a wink.

He found the ring in the corn bag again. Chuckled. “I knew it wasn’t the peas.”

The missing speech? Still missing.

He didn’t look for it.

He wouldn’t need it.

At the park, Ariana was exactly where she’d been, yellow dress, book in hand, ankles crossed on the bench like serenity incarnate.

She looked up as he approached. “Hey,” she said.

“Hey,” he replied, and then sneezed so violently it startled a passing jogger and a squirrel into a tree.

She blinked. “Bless you?”

“Thank you,” he said cheerfully, wiping his nose with dignity and a leaf. “I’m experiencing the full range of pollen-based enlightenment today.”

The pigeons showed up. Of course they did.

“Ah yes,” he said, arms open to the sky, “come at me, feathered chaos.”

One landed on his shoulder. Another pooped on the bench beside them. He nodded. “Consistent.”

The moment came.

He pulled out the ring (no sock storage this time) and stood in front of her.

“Listen,” he said, eyes bright, “today’s been a circus. I sneezed into a stranger. I’m ninety percent sure I’m wearing two different shoes. And I’m about to propose with pigeon crap within a six-foot radius.”

She started to smile.

“I had this whole speech,” he went on, “but I lost it. And then I lost my nerve. And then I lost, well, several hypothetical years of my life in a very intense dream sequence, but that’s not the point.”

He dropped to one knee.

“I love you. I don’t care if the ring rolls away or a goose steals my wallet. I want this. I want the messy, weird, off-key music of us.”

He held out the ring.

“So... how long have you been thinking about this?” she asked, soft.

He looked up at her.

“A lifetime,” he said.

She didn’t hesitate.

Not this time.

They kissed. Right there in the park, beneath the pigeons, beside the very fountain that once doomed him.

Somewhere nearby, a dog barked.

He glanced over.

A brown mutt with a lopsided bandana, Radish, in the flesh, tail wagging like an over-caffeinated metronome.

The dog trotted up, sniffed the ring box, then sat at Ariana’s feet like he’d always belonged.

The man blinked.

“Okay,” he said, “now I’m starting to think this is a dream again.”

Ariana laughed and kissed him once more.

“Nope,” she whispered. “This one’s real.”