Near the end of his life, he searched through the motives behind all of the stupid things he had done. When it was not carelessness, it was loneliness.
Category: Two Sentence Stories
Wasted
Every time they were together, he was drunk, or high, or deliberately flirting with other girls in front of her just to make sure she knew how little she mattered to him. The whole thing made her feel like such a waste of really fine wine of some beer-guzzler’s ass.
Cold-hearted bitch
She used him until she didn’t need him anymore. Then, for decency’s sake, she allowed herself the occasional twinge of guilt and regret usually associated with these situations.
Lapse
He only lost control once. But that was enough to destroy everything.
Ill-fated Romance
He called to ask her out on Valentine’s and, after some hesitancy said: “Do you believe in poetry?”
She said, “I don’t believe in much of anything,” but she ended up going to the reading downtown with him anyway.
3-Ring Aftermath
Her parents finally stopped taking Susan to the circus. She had so much fun during the few hours they were there that she cried for days afterward because the rest of life was nothing like it.
Justifying Walls
I’m sometimes criticized for being cold but I opened up my heart once. All I have to show for it is an STD.
Cheap Thrill
They were teenagers when she traveled across the country for a visit, and there were no cultural activities to entertain her. So they ran through the dollar store and came out covered in tacky jewelry and fake tattoos.
For Whom the Bell Tolls
The day he received his rejection letter from Harvard, he buried his face in a towel and wept. He wasn’t sad for himself, but for his parents.
A, B, or C?
When she thought about him, The Great Thing That Never Was, she could observe herself dissolving into a completely unpredictable mass of emotions and raw nerves. If she saw him again, would she say, “Fuck you,” or ignore him completely, or throw her arms around his neck?
Educated Poverty
He poured everything he had into his education. By the time he received his Master’s degree, he couldn’t afford to frame the diploma.
Pick-ups
They were stupidly passing time, re-telling the worst pick-up lines they’d ever heard. Out of the crowd, one stood out as the clear winner: “Baby, you’re so fine, I’d like to put you on a plate and sop you up with a biscuit!”
Silly Question
They walked into an expensive menswear shop, and the salesman asked rather ridiculously, “What brings you in today?” He raised his eyebrows and smiled, “Fate?”
Justice
After a lengthy career of art theft, he was captured, tried, and sentenced to several years in jail. He got out, wrote a book about it, and made more off the royalties than he ever had off stolen art.
Gossip
After Adam, she decided she would never again date anyone her girlfriends wanted to set her up with. She needed to be able to confide in them but it seemed unfair and unkind to share things like: “Your friend is a premature ejaculator,” or “My massage therapist thinks he’s gay.”
Too much snow
Spring came. Only then did she remember that there was a season apart from winter.
Confession
All the other nuns assumed she had joined them because of a shared devotion. She later confessed it was simply because she hadn’t realized that the last man who asked her to marry him would be the last man who asked her to marry him.
Status Quo
He loved their sex life. She loved her rabbit.
The Less-loved
When her childhood crush informed her he was getting married, she felt devastated until he added: “We’ve been together so long, I feel like I owe it to her.” Suddenly, she felt very sorry for his fiancée.
Look-alikes
We hadn’t seen William in at least two years when we went to pick him up at the train station, and we were killing time waiting for him by pointing out weird people we saw. I was doubled over with laughter having identified someone who looked exactly like William if he became a crazy, disheveled mathematician ten years from now when my friend Nicee gently touched my arm and said, “That is William.”