And then the two of you are off to the races, and no matter what we, the people who live in that town and shop in that store, think about it, or how we snicker about it in the parking lot, saying unimaginative things ourselves now, such as “Well, good for them, really, why not?” or “One thing I would not want to be is a fly on the wall of wherever it is they go to be alone” or “I guess you never can tell, with people,” and no matter what the mother with the men’s glasses might hiss at night at her son in the house, her house, that she and the son share but that she owns, there would still be, as if willed by some force bigger than any of us, a wedding, in July, in the church just up the block that had formerly been a private home and that the current pastor had crowned with a bell tower of sorts but without any bell in it.

And all of us would go to that wedding, because how could we not? And because the new couple looked so naïve, happy, and clueless, standing there at the altar of the church with no bell in its tower, we would think: “Oh, this is not going to end well.”

And it may not. It still may not end well. Life being, as they say, long. But it has not ended badly yet. It has not ended at all. When we are in that store, we will often hear him singing her praises, whether she is nearby or not, and same with her: she is always singing his praises, whether he is nearby or not. Seeing her now, one does not think “looks like bird” but “small, glowing lady.” And he, he moves around the store with a theatrical beneficence, seeming to take a fastidious pleasure in helping customers with even the smallest things, sometimes even helping a customer too much, for too long, not at all ashamed now, it seems, to be seen working in his mother’s store, as he had so often seemed to be formerly. And over time, the mother has become, one might say, subservient to, even adoring of, the couple they have become, and, whether they are nearby or not, but especially if they are not, will sing their praises, saying that they are devoted, absolutely devoted to each other, is the way she will most often put it.

Ghoul

GHOUL

At noon Layla wheels over Vat of Lunch. For a sec I can be not-scary, leaning against our plastiform wall meant to resemble human entrails.

“Why aren’t the old served first?” crabs Leonard, Squatting Ghoul Two, senior to all.

Last week Leonard’s knee went out. We, his fellow Squatting Ghouls, have since been allowing him to sit upon our plastiform Remorseful Demon, which, at this moment, emits one of its periodic Remorse-groans.