The Talking Flask

A cold breeze blew past the window, as the layer of frost spread like so many snowflakes etched across its smooth surface.  A warm glow shone from within the small log cabin tucked along the edge of a clearing barely larger than the cabin itself.

Inside the cabin, just above the soft howl of the wind, the dulcet tones of a Motown singer floated through the air. The soft music was accented by the cracking and popping of a roaring fire in the large fireplace in the center of the space. It served as a banisher of cold as well as a divide between the living space and the sleeping quarters. The living space consisted of a small kitchen with three seats at the counter serving as the entirety of the dining area. A set of chairs were between this and the fireplace, with a large rug between them piled with blankets and pillows.

Over the soft music a high piercing scream began small and grew until it was suddenly stifled as Sofia removed the kettle from the wood burning stove.

“I still think it would have been faster if there was a microwave,” she grumbled as she poured steaming water into two mugs, leaving one with a few inches of space.

She glanced toward the man resting on the rug, his back to her as he gazed into the fire, then pulled out a small flask from the pocket of her over-sized UCLA hoodie. Topping off the pink mug with its amber contents, she picked them up and carried them back toward the warmth of the fireplace.

Careful to pass the green mug on, she sat on a chair. As he shifted to lean back against he chair opposite her, he blew across the steam rising from the mug and took a tentative sip.

“Thank you,” he said, smiling up at her.

She forced a smile a took a large sip from her pink mug, the words “Princess for the Day” etched in gold across in. They sat sipping as the singers changed, the but the steady sounds of Motown carried the conversation for them.

“We interrupt this broadcast of Motown Monday to bring you a special report. The National Weather Institute is issuing a warning for all residents in the county. Find shelter and hunker down. This little storm is growing in intensity and is now threatening to drop another 36 inches of snow by morning. We’ll be here all night with updates on this growing storm. For now, here are some lovely ladies to lighten you mood.”

He looked at Sofia as she stared worriedly out the window. She looked over, surprised to find him watching her.

“Want another cup?” he asked.

“Sure,” she said, drinking the last of it before she reluctantly handed him her cup.

As he went into the kitchen the room suddenly fell silent. The song playing ended in the middle as the radio abruptly cut out. She reached over and tapped it.

“Did you bring batteries?” she called.

“Batteries? No I didn’t.”

She sighed, then sat awkwardly as she listened to him moving around in the kitchen. The sound of the kettle scraping across the metal surface of the stove. The squeak of the small door on the front of the stove as he opened it and added more wood, stoking the embers with a poker.

Without the music the fill the space, it felt small and confining. The silence itself bared down on her until all she could hear was the pounding of her own heart echoing over it all in her ears. She closed her eyes and forced herself to take a slow, deep breath.

Her heartbeat began to slow and quiet. She realized that everything else was quiet too. She opened her yes to find him kneeling in front of her. He hesitated before putting his hand awkwardly on her arm.

“Don’t worry,” he assured her. “We have plenty of supplies, lots of wood and everything is okay.”

“Everything is not okay.”

“Sure it is,” he said.

“No,” she said firmly, getting to her feet. “It’s not.

She walked three feet and reached the wall. She turned and paced the other way, only to come up against another wall. She made a full circle around the fireplace, before winding up right back where she started, standing before him.

‘Why on earth did you bring me hear?” she demanded.

“To get away,” he said, surprised.

“From what?”

“From life. From all the things causing you so much stress. Causing this distance between us,” he finished quietly.

“You brought me to the middle of nowhere, to a tiny little room without so much as a generator so I can grind coffee in the morning, so I can get distance from my stress?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“No.”

“No what?” he asked.

“In all your planning,” she started, voice rising over the crescendo that was the thump of her own heartbeat echoing once again in her ears, “did it ever occur to you that the source of my stress was you?”

“Me?”

“Yes, you.”

She sighed, sinking down to the rug and rubbing her temples.

“What did I do?” he asked, still sitting on the rug across from her, within reach but a world away.

“It’s not like I have a list,” she snapped, “and even if I did it’s not just things you’ve done. It’s things you haven’t done.”

“What does that even mean?” he growled in frustration.

She crossed her arms, giving herself the unconscious hug she needed so desperately in that moment as the wall between them became colder than the storm outside.

“I don’t want to fight,” she said, detaching.

He stood up and angrily walked into the tiny kitchen, banging a cabinet closed before angrily grabbing the kettle, on the verge of a whistle, from the stove and dropping it angrily on a trivet beside the stove.

He took a deep breath and calmly walked back over to sit on the floor.

“I don’t want to fight either,” he sighed. “How do we do that?”

“Megan says the only way to stop fighting is to start listening,” she said, sticking her chin out stubbornly.

It had been his idea for her to start seeing a therapist. She wasn’t talking to him anymore, he had hoped she would be able to figure some things out. He just hadn’t thought she’d expect him to have anything to do with all the psychobabble, mumbo jumbo that usually resulted with him being the bad guy.

“Okay,” he said. “How do we do this?”

She blinked, surprised.

“Um..well,” she stammered. “Megan would say that we need to use a talking stick.”

“Fresh out of those,” he said. “If I’d only known…”

She glared at him.

“If you’re just going to make fun -”

“What else can we use?” he asked.

“I guess it doesn’t matter what it is,” she said, reaching into her pockets. “The principle’s the same.”

She pulled out the flask and held it up. He reached for it.

“Wait,” she said, holding up a hand. “First the rules.”

He bit his tongue and nodded.

“Whoever has the talking flask gets to talk. The other person can’t interrupt or argue. They have to wait their turn. Okay?”

“Okay,” he said, as he took the offered flask. He unscrewed the lid and took a small sip. “Hey, that’s my good scotch.”

“Do you want to go first or not?” she asked and reached for the flask.

“Okay, okay. So if I have the flask, you have to listen and you can’t argue right?”

She nodded.

He held the flask tighter and took a deep breath.

“Sofie, you have been my wife for 18 years. I knew I loved you the first time I saw you.”

She opened her mouth. He held up a finger, pointing to the flask.  She closed her mouth and settled back against the chair.

“Yes, even after you drunkenly kissed me and immediately puked on my shoes.”

A small smile caught at the corner of her mouth.

“I knew then that you were my future. 20 years later, four golden retrievers and two kids later, she is still the  woman I want to wake up beside. But I haven’t seen her in so long. She’s this girl I used to know. I brought you here, away from the craziness of life to try to find her. Because if she’s gone, I just want to you at least be happy again.”

He held out the flask.

“Even if that’s not with me,” he said softly, as he placed it in her hand.

She sat staring at him. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She cleared her throat and opened the flask, took a sip, then another.

“That’s not the first time we met,” she finally said. “We actually met the summer before.”

He opened his mouth, but she pointed at the flask and he sat back, waiting.

“It was a rainy Wednesday and I took Barney to the dog park anyway, because he was going stir crazy at my mom’s. You were there with Henry. Barney took off with your brand new tennis ball. I finally convinced him to give it to me and threw it back to you. It was pouring raining and you played fetch with both dogs while I huddled under my umbrella. When the rain began to pour I gave a whistle and took Barney home with no more than a wave between us.”

He shifted, but waited patiently.

“You didn’t even remember me when we got rooms across from each other in the same dorm. That’s why I let Connie talk me into the peppermint schnapps. I was working up the courage to talk to you again and all you remember is me puking on you.”

He held out his hand for the flask. She took a sip before she passed it back.

“Red ladybug galoshes, a clear raincoat and bubblegum pink pajamas underneath,” he said softly. “You were adorable and I wanted so badly to get up the nerve to ask you to go for coffee that rainy day, but I was too shy. I couldn’t believe my luck when I moved into my dorm the week before school started and there you were, coming out of the room across from mine. Toothbrush in hand, wearing the same bubblegum pink pajamas. I wanted to kiss you right then, but didn’t want to be that creepy guy across the hall.”

He set the flask down and took her hands in his.

“You puking on my shoes was one of the best things that ever happened to me, because it finally gave me an excuse to talk to you.”

Sam’s Summary:

My prompts for this story were: Dog Park, Motown singer, a tea kettle, no electricity and radio broadcast.

This story feels like an ugly lemon. With some work it could be a pretty kickin’ glass of lemonade one day.