The Aisle

The first chord of the Wedding March struck up and he turned to look down the aisle. His heart leapt. This was it, then. She was going to be his. All his. Just as on the day they first met, her beauty floored him. Just as it now floored the congregation, in collective gasp, though he knew for certain only he and he alone understood the extent to which this was not the product of some glorious happenstance meeting in the parental gene pool, but the physical amplification of an angelic heart. She began to step toward him. As her hip swayed and her breast heaved deep, the crowd, her dress, the cross, all disappeared, and he saw her stepping in fear and expectation toward his bed on that first night. He sighed. All these years later, after all those concentrated hours and days of wonder, he was still incapable of fathoming how their path had led from that night to this moment. He supposed he never would. She was close now. Close enough for her father to catch his eye. No one would ever be worthy of his daughter, naturally, but he’d never been left in doubt there were plenty worthier than him. Today, though, was different, and he looked upon him with a gleaming countenance. As father and daughter drew level she smiled, shyly. A shared moment, never to be forgotten. And then, without breaking step, she walked on by. She was going to be his. All his.

The Salesman's Guarantee

The salesman had been right when he said “Sir, this stool will last you a lifetime.” Utterly dependable, three legs as solid as the day he and Margaret had bought it to serve as Christmas seating all those years ago. Back in the days when the in-laws crowded out the dining room, leaving Thomas relegated to the fold-up table normally reserved for camping. He wondered how many times he’d stood on it to put the living room clock forwards, backwards, forwards, backwards. Even as the house had grown quieter over the years, today to the point of silence, and even as his frame had begun to fill with indulgent consolation in middle age, it would bear his weight without a murmur. Almost uniquely amongst the contents of the house, Margaret had raised no objection when he’d said he’d like to keep it, acceded that Thomas was too big for it now anyhow. It was a small mercy, and he was grateful, though it would have meant more if she’d been aware of bestowing it. As he stood and reflected, he realised with a dead shudder that he’d been sitting on it, three years later, in that early morning hour, when he first learned the news about Thomas. Yes, the stool had become a fixed certainty in an uncertain world. And now it rolled end over end, not a creak to be heard, before slowly rocking gently back and forth in apparent unity with the already limp body swinging above.