Cheat Sheets

What you’re about to read are some ‘dark comedy’ micro fictions all with a theme of infidelity – that is, lovers and married couples cheating on each other. They are taken from a series of such that I am currently writing. They’re definitely not based on any real situations or people so any resemblance to actuality is very much coincidental. If you find them a little mean or shocking, great – as well as a few chuckles, that’s the idea.

Hospital

I went to see my girlfriend at the hospital. I’d received a call to say there’d been a terrible car accident she’d caused after she drank half a bottle of Jägermeister.

“It’s really a miracle that she has survived at all”, the doctors were saying.

When I arrived in the waiting room, there was another man there claiming to be her boyfriend. He was desperately worried and pacing the floor, so I did the same. The newspaper under my arm would have to wait. They let us in and we both gasped at the sight of her in a near-complete body cast. The only part of her we could see was a horrified, guilty little face.

“We’re not mad” I said.

“Focus on resting” he said.

Later during the visit, she said she saw her future flash in her mind when the car hit the other car and then hit the streetlamp. I wasn’t in it, she told me, her face full of sympathy for me, but he was. She told us in detail how patient he was in her vision, spooning puree into her mouth while she dribbled it down her chin. It sounded beautiful. They sounded so in love. I wished them well and told her I’d never forget her and then left, wondering what to do with the sunny afternoon, and thought maybe I’d go get a chocolate milkshake, read my newspaper at last.

Mine

It all began when she picked up a book about getting back to Nature. It was just little things for a while, but then she was doing all sorts of funny things, hugging trees, conversing with insects, things you’ll draw queer looks for.

“You should join me” she’d say, when she’d catch me arching an eyebrow.

Then she told me she was going to give up wearing clothes.

“Okay” I said, sure enough it wouldn’t be long before she changed her mind. After all, it isn’t the Bahamas we’re living in. I can’t say if she noticed the mayhem she was causing, car crashes, people walking into poles, not to mention all the unexpected erections. She’s very beautiful, you see, and goes to the gym, and does Pilates in the garden. I could get over the people being killed in tragic accidents, walking out in front of buses and the like, if only I didn’t feel like I was sharing her with the undeserving world.

Honesty

My last girlfriend used to give out all the time that I couldn’t ever be trusted to tell the truth.

“You’re a filthy liar” she might spit.

“That’s not true” I’d lie.

It didn’t work out, of course. How can it without trust? I got a new girlfriend, a deaf girlfriend. She’s fantastic. She is very understanding as well, doesn’t fly into rages and throw things like my old girlfriend used to do. No, she’s gentle and loving.

We are very happy together. I can’t get enough of her smiling face, the way she looks at me as though she has all she has ever wanted from this life. And I’ve gotten much better at honesty since. I tell her the whole truth, in fact. It’s true – each night, after I turn out the light, because she’s a wonderful lip reader.

I suspect this is it. She’s surely “the one”, as they say.

Boomerang

I know now I should have been more forgiving. When my Aussie boyfriend said it would never happen again, I should have believed him, at least given him the chance to earn back my trust.

“She was a one-time drunken mistake” he’d said. “It didn’t mean anything. Please, we can work this out.”

I know that to be the truth now. I wonder if he misses me the way I miss him, which is with a burning desire. It’s killing me now, waiting to hear back from him. He should have received my gift by now, a life-size cuddly koala bear, because that’s what I used to call him: My Cuddly Koala Bear. It’s the cutest thing. On his back he even has a boomerang. On it, I’ve written in indelible ink, the message: Please come back to me!