THE MARRIAGE PROPOSAL

A scream resided inside Natalie. She didn’t know its name or where it lived. But she imagined it pacing across ice that might break at any minute. She had led Nate to rooms that recalled only him. Rooms that had been museums from the get-go. Nate was deciduous. She believed there were other ways of being held in all that cold, during the seasons that changed their minds. Natalie told herself stories. There was one about Natalie arguing with her flowers, pulling them up, and politely offering them to clouds. Who was listening? Repeat after me, she uttered to no one. There was the story describing how she was always new, even among the rooms that didn’t work correctly. She wanted to scream until all her dreams had dissipated. Instead she fell onto her knees on the thin earth and whispered, Stay with me.

Laurie Blauner