taking the plunge with emily

by B.W. Carter

I read about a guy in Japan who married a pillow. Honest. And I get it. A pillow’s there to provide support. Unconditional (even if a little flat, or lumpy) support. It lets you lay on it, even when you stink. It listens. It lets you beat it, and never cries out when you do. Even if you do. A pillow lets you make sweet, sweet love to it if you are so inclined, whenever you want, even when it stinks. (You must still get consent, of course.) A pillow does not judge that behavior or any other. Listen: a pillow will even kill your enemy — if you can get your enemy into bed or onto the couch for a little menage à trois.

So, yeah — I get it. You find somebody, animate or not, who’s willing to stay by your side, endure your abuse, listen to your complaints, soak up your tears, then go for it. Why not? Who cares if your lover lacks vocal cords, or a vulva, or vitality in the slightest?

That’s why I’m headed to the courthouse with this book of Emily Dickinson poems. We’re going in a motorized cab, not a carriage, and that freaks her out a little, I can tell. I coo and caress her peeling cover, and the driver looks disturbed, staring in his rearview. But I don’t care, and neither does she. She never cares, and that’s why I love her. Despite all her flaws — and she has them. She’s an umpteenth edition, an umpteenth printing. Her boards are scratched, notched. Her pages, torn. Her margins, defaced with scribbles. She’s bruised, battered, broken-spined, though I swear I never beat her. She was that way when we met, and I took her home regardless.

My Emily’s a frumpy gal, no doubt. She’s foxed, not foxy. Her corners are crimped like a spinster’s lips. She might have a bug or two hiding in her creases. And for sure, maybe she’s a little old for me. But I don’t care — let people stare. The whole age thing isn’t even shocking nowadays, anyway; not like when she was first published.

So, yeah, I get it — she’s got some issues. But who, or what, doesn’t? And she’s mine, here of her own free will even if I bought her. She always wanted to be heard, to be seen; knowing that, I don’t feel bad about the whole “purchasing a mate” thing. She’s here because she was meant to be here. And she’ll never leave me. Not even if her cover falls off (which, honestly, could happen any day now). Even if all but her last two pages fall out.

She’s been giving me support for years, and she agrees it’s about time we made it official. She doesn’t have a pulse, my Emily, but frankly she’s got more personality in those two pages than anybody I’ve had the misfortune of thirsting after lately. And that’s enough.

So, yeah — I do.

BIO: B.W. Carter is a writer sunlighting as a social worker. He lives in the southern U.S., and he’s seen some stuff. His fiction has been published in Rock and a Hard Place Magazine, Mystery Tribune, Grey Sparrow Journal, The Yard: Crime Blog, and Flash Fiction Magazine, among others.