Looking back, Raymond realized his marriage had been a sham; he had
been a phony. Wanda had walked out on him, declaring that she no longer
loved him; in fact, she wasn’t sure she had ever loved him.
She scooped Fido, their cat, up under her arm, hoisted her already
packed tote bag over her shoulder and slammed the door behind her.
Raymond was speechless; a rare occurrence, which seemed to be the
crux of his dilemma. A week earlier, Wanda had hollered that she couldn’t
take it anymore. If he didn’t stop his jabbering, she would
go insane; she’d leave.
Jabbering? Raymond, who had always been a quiet guy, thought women
appreciated a man of knowledge, a communicator. When they first met, Raymond
was determined to dazzle Wanda with interesting conversation. He worked
hard to memorize tidbits of information. He subscribed to an on-line
encyclopedia and studied while pretending to do his job. She called
him Mr. Yellow Pages; he loved that.
Riding the bus home, Raymond made mental lists of topics to discuss.
He would fill dreaded lulls in chatter with new subjects. Eventually
Wanda tuned him out; he tried harder to engage her attention. Raymond
never noticed their conversations had become monologues.
After Wanda left him, Raymond returned to his solitary, quiet self.
He was exhausted; tired of memorizing facts and data, sick of the
pressure he put on himself to fascinate Wanda. Raymond adjusted his
Lazy-Boy recliner, savored the silence and almost laughed; he missed
having Fido curled up on his lap.
Raymond and Wanda is 100% fiction. It sprouted from
a seed in Guy Biederman’s “Low-Fat Fiction” workshop.
I do not know any Raymonds and have always wanted to write a story
with a Fido in it.
