The Love Life Of Dyter And His Wife

Growing pains in a relationship

The Love Life Of Dyter And His Wife

Dyter suffers from a monkey on his back. Not really a monkey. It is a 900 lb. Gorilla conjured up by Sylvia, his charming wife of thirty years. They survive on limited resources, meager means, mostly subsidized by the state; morsels dolled out in supplication, penance paid for the fate of people who make mistakes like being born poor. The stipend covers the very small living quarters and not much more. It appears the room grows smaller and smaller by the hour. It is hard to forget a silver back, that is, if it was ever there to begin with. A hairy gray creature, an unforgiving grimace, a killer demeanor; are they just figments of the imagination? Could all this be a dream or apparition wild and fictitious? The room seems to be spinning clockwise, no, counterclockwise or is it both? There could be animals larger than themselves filling up their tiny room and the empty spaces of their lives but who has time for thinking when there is work to be done in order to survive? Sylvia reminds him of his responsibilities with a skillet to the head every day of their married life. It is unforgettable in so many ways. They are married forever till death do they part and they are off to a good start. She reminds him of his failures. The list is long. It goes on forever. It is longer than the many years they have been together in wedded bliss. Holy matrimony is not an institution to be trifled with. Just ask the Holy Spirit and His buddies. All saints and angels align in perfect harmony. It is quite serious in the eyes of the church. Harmonics are the building blocks of life. It seems there is also a very large elephant in the room with them as well. The room seems to be growing smaller by the minute. The 900 lb. Gorilla, growing larger all the time while his wife rides the beast as she sees fit. Something has got to give. Reality isn't always cracked up to be what you expect but it is interesting nonetheless. No breakfast for Dyter. He gets a heavy iron frying pan landed on his thickish skull each morning at around 10:00 am by the love of his life. Bless her dainty soul. He would be lost without her. How else would he know just how wrong he was and is and will be throughout eternity? She needs to strike him twice, like a damp match that refuses to light. She yells, “Get up you filthy worthless sack of mud!” “Go out and get a job!” “Bills don't pay themselves you know!” Sylvia was his eternal inspiration, motivator and person who scared him half to death, but for his comatose personality you could say he was and is already well on his way to nowhere in particular on any given day. It took all of her powers of persuasion and his turtle like reflexes to get up and get going as his get up and go got up and went ages ago. The one and only tooth, a brown one, stuck out of the upper center portion of her mouth. It was a very large thing so we will forgive her for that and other misgivings about her in that regard. Two black dots situated side by side on her center left cheek, like demonic beady snake eyes, pierced Dyter's soul, watching his every move, his every action with unrivaled condemnation. Silvia calls the dots beauty marks. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder or so we're told. The man had no say in the matter or any matter for that matter. He was programmed from the time he said, “I do” at the alter, to do and say everything as instructed by the love of his life as it was ordained by God Himself in the beginning, with the blessing of the regional bishop to seal the deal. Dyter was too old and feeble to work. He would go through the motions of a job search daily to placate and capitulate to the demands of the Mrs. No one wanted to hire a shriveled up old man with no skills to speak of; a man who was almost comatose most of his waking hours. People in his trade were no longer needed in the workplace. Times change and with it people's interests. He has been retired for some time now from the photography industry. He used to take pictures of foot prints embedded in concrete. These days people use their own Iphones and digital cameras. There was no real demand for black and white images of shoe prints in wet cement. The general population wanted something more solid but less concrete. One day while he was out and about, meandering around the village, pretending to be on his job search but in reality avoiding his not too sweet sweetie, he happened upon his favorite bench in the park. It was clearly being occupied by someone else. A pretty young girl of tender years was sitting right there in his location taking up residence like nobody's business. The bench had been calling him, beckoning him from a distance, from the moment he stepped outside his front door that morning. Dyter Stone's philosophy has always been, “The best part of waking up is going back to sleep.” He lived his life by that credo. All he wanted at that moment was to rest awhile in the comfort and embrace of the iron and wood structure before him, his home away from home to be precise. He was forced into a verbal exchange of common human courtesies for the sake of his primal goal, which was to occupy the space she now occupied, to replace her body with his body on the bench and to sleep a deep sleep which he was fully willing, able and skilled to do once the opportunity prevailed itself. In other words, he needed the entire bench to himself for his selfish ends. He smiled and introduced himself to the young lady. He quickly became enamored by her charm when she replied, “Sally.” “Would you like to join me?” The absurdity, the astounding audacious presumption that the bench could be hers to offer, as something to be shared, was almost shocking enough to wake him into a reality he might not yet be prepared for. She confessed that she had been occupying that specific location for nearly 5 hours, playing hooky from school and with nothing better to do then to sit there all day and day dream, stare into heaven, hoping for the love of her life to happen by, by chance or any other circumstance that chance might measure out in its divine randomness or see fit to gift her with. Her argument was compelling. Since she was on the bench for such a long time, anyone could justify her natural inclinations to become attached to it. Her random thoughts and ideas mesmerized Dyter. and his simple ways of thinking about things. Thoughts conjured up by her were well worth listening to. She had a pretty little smile with her pretty little empty head full of so much air that you could hear the ocean if you placed your ear to hers and listened. This was much more fun than sitting at home watching Silvia munch away on her massive wads of chewing tobacco and having to clean out her spittoon every day. It was time for his nap or coma, however one might view it. He could hardly keep his eyes open so he laid his head on Sally's lap. It was the perfect compromise. It beat his other idea of tossing her head first into the lake. He was entirely too out of shape and lazy for that idea to gain any traction. They remained there on the cold bench for hours in mostly idle conversation. Somewhere in the mix of things she mentioned that she was 14. Dyter didn't buy that notion. He figured she was 12 or 13 at best but he could not prove his hypothesis because youngsters were not required by law to carry ID to prove their identity. He wanted to give her a simple kiss on the cheek for being so giving and sharing of the bench but figured that would be in violation of his marital vows. In any event he had already fallen fast asleep or into a catatonic state, whatever your perspective or view on that might be. Sylvia must be going bananas by now. It was getting dark and her husband had not returned. He could only imagine the room of his tiny apartment growing smaller and the Elephant and gorilla growing larger by the pound, taking turns riding one another, with Silvia and her beauty marks growing larger and angrier by the minute, ready to erupt into volatile volcanoes on a perfectly normal day.

Reviews

[Einstein Noodle]

i love your narrator! a fine story teller in plane language .. and my heart bleeds for Dyter .. great name by the way .. and Sylvia's too .. characters leap out at me though little is said about clothes, beards nor colors ... who they are is so relatable .. universal .. experienced by all couples to one degree or another .. for poor Dyter and Sylvia, however, it has gone way past "patching up" ... such a zoo! ;) enjoyed reading .. i want more .. must see how Dyter gets on with life
E.

[Earl Schumacker]

Hi E. Thanks a lot. Glad you enjoyed it. Honestly, I enjoy story telling over poetry. I write very short stories these days with the idea that people don't have time to read a book. I forgot to mention the thing about Sylvia's one brown tooth. It is a very large one so we will forgive her for that and me for not writing about it. Have a great day. Earl

[Einstein Noodle]

ahahaha perfect ..one brown tooth ..i love it! :)

[Earl Schumacker]

Hi E. I revised the story. It is a large tooth too. I continue to forgive her for that. I hope you do too. Have a great day. Earl

[Einstein Noodle]

:) .......................