They Were Less Than Friends

A cursory look revealed a minor omission with a major impact on their relationship.

Years of psychoanalysis were wasted trying to understand why the two were at each other’s throats. The name-calling, the stink eyes, the ugly faces, the fingers in the air, yelling, stomping, pounding of the tables with their fists – what caused it? All I could say was hell if I knew. That is until I glanced at what they wrote many moons ago and noticed something that was right in front of me all this time.

“Of course! This is it!” I yelled.

They looked at me as if I lost my mind. Frankly, I may have. Once you read what I am about to tell you, you too will come to the same conclusion.

Writing this story from the point of view of a pretend couples therapist who discovers that something written on a piece of paper is the reason for a broken relationship? It could be plausible if only it weren’t all so silly. What I am talking about is, in fact, two identical somethings each one written independent of the other by two individuals. Now, it’s not unheard of for two people to write the same thing independently. This is especially true of couples. The longer they live together the more they become like each other. They may begin to have matching thoughts. When they both write sitting in opposite corners, it might be the same thing because they pick up each other’s brain waves. It’s the result of having spent a lot of time together.

So, there I was staring at what they wrote. The two identical sentences. Mind you, all of this is fiction. My fiction, which you are about to read. I was aware of its fictional nature then, and, as I kept writing this story, I thought:

“It’s one thing to sit here writing and inventing a reason for the coming apart of a relationship. But, not like this. This is just lunacy. This is what I am dreaming up? No wonder my fictional characters think I’ve lost my mind. I’ve gone mad. What a pity.”

All the while, I continued writing. Here’s what the two in a broken relationship wrote on their separate pieces of paper as per my overactive imagination:

“We are fiends.”

That’s the minor omission with a major impact on their relationship. They were one letter of the alphabet less than friends. The “r” was missing.

I will leave you to ponder this psychological thriller. And if you offer condolences to my waning sanity, I will gracefully accept.

I blame the pandemic for this.

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