Heavy love

I basically have to drag Kate out the door, just to go for a stroll. We used to stroll, I swear, at least three times a week. Now? Once in the last, I don't know, month? She rolls her eyes multiple times before we even get out the door. I mean, yeah its cold outside, but come on this is our marriage.  Probably not for long if we don't start walking more, but Im trying. Kate’s expressions always seem to be rich with despair, I don't know where I went wrong. Its like all she wants to do is watch that home renovation show, Leave it to Bryan all day. Our PVR is literally full of that bald idiot. 

We walk side by side, not holding hands, down the sidewalk of our street. Our street was announced as the safest in our neighbourhood. I just had my tires slashed last week. So I guess I call bullshit on that.

Kate told me that she thought it was too cold. I told her I thought she was too cold. It was silent after that, proving my point. 

As the sun was just starting to set, four crows were picking apart a man on the side of the road. He clearly was hit by a car. 

Kate looked at me with sad, tired eyes. “I’m just not sure this is working.”

I looked away, blinking back tears that I knew weren't coming. She was right. 

“Do you even want to fight for us?” She asked, with a voice that was full of disappointment. 

“An unfair question, Kate.”

“How?”

A building crumbles and falls in the far reaches of the city, though very visible to us in the suburbs.

We walk further and further, I’m pretty surprised that Kate is still walking at this point, and with minimal complaints. I figure she realizes the weight of this stroll, it could be our last. We both glance over at a burning home on the corner of Grant Street and Fifth. Billowing smoke like an black braid churning out and above the roof. A swing set cracks and collapses in the front yard.

“You can’t think that this is the best it could be though, do you?” She asks, “Our lives are bland, loveless.”

“Well, I do know that it sure isn't the worst. We have a dog, a nice home in a nice neighbourhood, and not to mention our parents like each other.”

“I agree with all of that, but I feel like I need more. I need someone like Bryan. Like when was the last time you fixed something in our home?”

“Nothing is ever broken.”

A small car explosion from just up the street, steals our attention for a moment. The passenger door falls off and clatters to the street. 

“Do we give it another shot?” I ask after a long silence.

“I think we flip a coin.”

“Leave it up to chance?”

“Why not?”

“Seems logical to me,” I fish out a toonie from my jacket pocket. Turns out all I have is a quarter. Which is a huge bummer, must’ve spent that toonie. Or maybe it was when I was mugged.

“Alright, you call it,” I say.

“Heads we stay together.”

“And tails?”

We've stopped and sat on a bench on the rusty bridge connecting the two sides of the city. A man hurls himself off the bridge to join the other floating limbs bobbing in the river. Maybe his family is down there. Family is important.

“Tails, we jump off the bridge,” Kate says. My mouth goes dry.

“Alright.”

I flip the coin. 

I catch it in mid air. A gun shot resounds in the distance. I slap it down onto the back of my hand. I lift my hand, revealing the coin.