You want to know what a perfect life is? Something of a fever dream painted in an exclusive manner by the wife you called home. The casa to your heart where beating was fundamental in surviving. The dosage of it so potent that it was savored at each stroke of her fingers to your wrist. Fixing your tie before work. Flipping the omelets and burning with a simple crust. She couldn’t cook as well as she claimed, but that was fine as long as her presence was a rush of air that blast with heat and a passion etched so finely it was hard to erode. The day settled on a Monday, rising as usual to meet the morning sun. She was a morning person and it showed in the arch of her pose. Stretching on point to flex into another. The mat of green, holding her place where she was meant to be, almost slipped you up as soon as the coast was clear.

That stupid mat but you loved her a lot to let the thing slide. Taking into consideration of the days spent trying to roll it up and tuck it beneath the bed for your own safety. She was there Tuesday morning, doing the same tasks. Listening to the news, the one where it echoed through speakers from a sound system connected to the television in the living room. She asked for coffee and you oblige, knowing how she liked the way you set the pot. No cream and a few spoons of sugar. This day she wanted you to make pancakes but you had to be at the office soon and with that, the office could wait. The cat who she had a better bond with stayed behind, curling up near while she bent herself into another position. The same stretch you claimed her temple in the evening before as shared sheets became a playground of sorts.

It was enough to make you smile. Doting a grin as wide that nothing couldn’t be done because it was for her and all she ever asked for were a stack of pancakes. Just make the damn pancakes already.

Pancakes for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday morning. Friday comes and she asks for a different dish. She wants to go out, a diner. The same diner where you two first met. It was heartfelt and embarrassing because of the work load you tugged around with you trying to find a bite to eat. She asked your name and you lied. She asked again and you told her the truth. Suddenly reliving the days that were not forgotten and packed against the life that could be. Taking into account of what went wrong. Nothing ever did except your nieces and nephew were living their own wonderful lives and you and her were fighting not to lose what kept you going.

Friday was a whole change from the previous days of the week. She was tired sitting up and not stretching along the mat. Hand pushing you to wake up, with a pout to her lip wondering why she wasn’t woken up. You both miss the alarm and rather than be a sour puss about it, there was a keen sense of not wanting to go into the office. Not wanting to burn flapjacks in the kitchen or make the pot of coffee you both enjoyed the most. You rather lay there in bed, with her and forget about the times that she tried to forgive you for the things you did. The days when separation was so easily paired by the guilt of not remaining faithful to what it meant to be a husband. It occurred and rapidly that the day wasn’t going to get better as it had been day in and day out.

You two never had the children you wanted and when it was almost a possibility, that too was snatched away. She was getting weaker and paler, as if the image of her fading by the moment. Realizing this wasn’t going to end well like the divorce. There was one and it took much of yourself not to fold away to revived back again for the sake of believing, feeling that none of it never occurred. It was a simple day and one which tripped from Friday to Saturday in a blur faster than blinking could be measured. You smelled pancakes again. Waking up repeatedly after a rewinding of time carried closer and closer to the ending of a week. It was a span of time while your body laid in the state that it was. Unmoved, unstirred, whistling winds carried by the vehicles passing right by. In between a driven state of unconsciousness and an organism feeding off what sourness that currently inhabited your life.

There was no waking up suddenly when held by the fact that those same pancakes, the smell that alerted senses. Alerted that she was still around and things were or had worked out better than you anticipated, only to see the difference between what lasts forever and what gets dumped in the incinerator. Vividly the days of the week were coming to its halt, coursing right into a new week and one more cautionary reminder of what you wanted and that there was no way in all of the hell you lived in for its eternal nature would receive the bounty of bliss and marriage with the woman who spoiled your desires for running down the same path. The light went off and the running tires over paved roads sent the jolt needed to feel the unfastening and being released by a plant’s hold far off to be vacated near a freeway he lost any recollection of being.