Thrown to the Dogs in a Trader Joe's Parking Lot

By Michael Propsom

The afternoon we met, she joked about being a narcissist. It was one of the qualities that attracted me to her—a woman unaccompanied by the threat of permanence. Since then, however, the endearing effects of her passive-aggressive banter and spontaneous nature have left me with a dependence stronger than any opioid. Now, slumped against my ’99 Civic in a blacktopped sea of Beemers, hybrids, and one slightly vandalized Tesla, this all-too-public heave-ho smacks of an amputation.

My tear ducts threaten to go full artesian. "Christ, woman, why did you choose this of all places to cut me loose?"

“Why here?” She shoots me her ‘well, duh’ look. That expression of hers and I are well-acquainted. “It’s strictly for your benefit. If you break down and cry, where else would you get at the very least a drizzle of respect if not a total downpour of sympathy from passersby for being a man who’s in touch with his emotions?”

One thing I won’t miss? Her forced metaphors. That and her overuse of the unnecessary adverb literally. “How is this for my benefit?”

"You think the unenlightened hoi polloi exiting a Walmart or Target would see you as anything more than a six-foot, blubbering wuss?" She plants a skin-deep kiss on my cheek and then turns toward Joe’s. “God, I am literally dying for a wedge of brie.”

---

Michael Propsom graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a BA in Social Work. His stories have been published by various magazines including The Saturday Evening Post online, Berkeley Fiction Review, Isele Magazine, and Tampa Review. He has had two Pushcart Prize nominations. He lives in southwest Washington where he builds custom acoustic guitars.