Nightly Routine
Nearly every night after a mostly-quiet dinner, Nora and Vern assumed their usual positions seated in identical armchairs situated on either side of the fireplace that hadn’t hosted flames since the last Christmas any of the children were home during the holidays.
His chair angled ever so slightly toward the television set on the other side of the room; hers tilted toward the reading lamp beside her chair. Vern flipped between educational programs and the news, occasionally grumbling about something he didn’t like on the screen, while Nora flipped the pages of her books, occasionally sighing as she finished one and moved on to the next.
After so many years together, comfortable silence was to be expected, wasn’t it?
They rarely found reason to speak. The recurring silence in the room magnified the gulf between them, only broken by the intermittent sounds of their discontent.
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Written in response to this week’s Six Sentence Stories challenge, hosted by Girlie on the Edge. Each week writers are challenged to spin a tale in just six sentences.
This week’s cue is GULF.
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Featured image by tookapic from Pixabay
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21 Comments
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How sad. I want to believe there are tiny embers crackling below a mountain of ash, and that Nora and Vern one day bridge that gulf between them.
I suppose it is sad, Denise, but this is what came to me and what Nora and Vern had to say. I went with it. I think it’s nice to believe that there could be viable embers for them. But maybe not. Guess only Nora and Vern can decide. 😉
At first this seemed to be a couple content with all their years together and able to enjoy comfortable silences. Hopefully they will be realize it isn’t too late to begin having some meaningful discussions and revitalize their marriage.
You set the scene very nicely even without the photo. 🙂
Thanks, Pat. I was frustrated with the photo choice – not what I wanted at all, but something about the color and style of that upholstery reminded me of a great grand aunt’s furniture so I went with it. Glad to know it worked with the scene created.
Perhaps Nora and Vern spent too many years focused on other things and other people to realize they were less than content with one another. Who knows? At any rate, they told me this was their reality. 😉
A cloth machine, its gears smoothed by a life of fulfilling it’s design, quietly clicking through its final cycles.
…no, I have no idea.
(Though, that was the image in my head, so…. L.’s Six? Score!)
lol
LOL Clark, were you reading this while dreaming? I have no idea whatsoever about your cloth machine, but I love that you put it out there.
Clark, I’ve been thinking about your comment this evening. Is it bizarre that I actually think I understand where you were going with that? LOL 😀
UP to the last line, it was as though you were talking about my family room. We have identical recliners, hers never reclines, mine is perpetually so. I read and watch TV, she provides commentary. This was very good, very real. There is something to be said for a quiet understanding after four decades. And as to the fire place, who has time for that mess? HA! Good one girl.
Paul, I love your comment and I love the picture you paint of your own living room scene. I also really appreciate your thought that this was “real.” Yeah, thank you. My own grandparents had matching chairs and different habits. Unlike Nora and Vern here, though, there was no underlying discontent in that pairing. I wanted to take these two somewhere different.
you did a great job with them and I’d love to hear how they got where they are. there’s a story in every couple’s journey.
That is true enough, Paul. My thoughts on them are that they spent so many years focused on everyone and everything else. Now when it’s just the two of them again, they’re reaping the effects of not cultivating their couplehood.
I must say I agree with Pat. We’ve been married 33 years and sure there are time of silence but they don’t outweigh the conversations. Great six!
That’s wonderful! Not so much for Nora and Vern.
Maybe one of them will spark a conversation from one of their interests.
Maybe. Or maybe this IS their conversation.
Each dreaming their separate dreams of what might have been…….if only……..
Perhaps they are. Perhaps they are satisfied being where they are. Only they know.
They need to get out of those chairs!
Maybe so, D.
EXCELLENT–portrays the sad picture of so many marriages.
Right, Rhen. Not all stories have fairy-tale endings.