Plato's Cave During the Slicer Wars and other short stories

by Terri Kouba

I look over at my husband, sitting in front of the fire, reading a leather-bound book written by Shakespeare. The book is old, its pages yellow and brittle. My husband cradles the book gently, careful not to wet his fingers as he delicately turns the pages.

  “Read to me,” I say. My voice comes from far away, as if the words were spoken by someone at the edge of the universe.

  My husband looks up and blinks sharply. His eyes narrow as if he’s looking at me across a great distance. The firelight catches in his eyes and for a moment I think I see the man from Ashland, Oregon. Then a sheepish grin creeps onto his face. “I could never read Old English out loud.” His cheeks turn red and he buries his head in the old book.

  A snort escapes me before I realize he’s right. The man sitting across from me, with his trimmed moustache and manicured fingernails, this accountant who dutifully puts on his helmet before riding his bike from the garage, who in the evening reads fine leather-bound books with gold edging while rocking our new sleeping daughter gently with his foot – this man could never speak old English with the flourish, the rhythm, the realism of the man I know at the Shakespeare festival in Ashland.

  My husband leaves Kansas and travels with me to Ashland and somewhere during the trip he changes. He stops being the accountant and he becomes the ruffian. They are one and the same, that man and this, and yet they are worlds apart. Or at least centuries apart. But they both hold my heart in their hands.

  The End

  To Wear Your Grief Upon Your Sleeve