Friday, February 14, 2014

In other words, perfect

He couldn't bear the thought of being one of those scorned, ridiculed and pitied for being alone on Valentine's Day. It was unfortunate that he came to this realization on February 2nd, as it put him behind schedule but he was undaunted. He'd identified a suitable object of affection. She was attractive but not to the extent that she would be put off by his advances. He imagined that her speaking voice wouldn't be too grating and that her laugh, if she were inclined to find something humorous, would be pleasant and not too overbearing. In other words, she was perfect.
He decided that in light of the time constraint imposed by his hasty realization that what was needed to get her attention was a single, grand and spectacular gesture. He thought relatively long and hard about what to do before eventually deciding that he would steal a motorcycle and give it to her as a present. His reasoning was sound: women like tough guys, tough guys ride motorcycles, women like nice guys, nice guys give presents, women like men who steal things, a man who steals motorcycles to give as presents is ideal. In other words, perfect.
This was, sadly, the best and most logical plan he had ever come up with. What made it sad is that she was entirely unimpressed. Mostly because she didn't know anything about it. He had been caught in the act and apprehended. In other words, beaten severely by the owner of the motorcycle.
He pleaded incessantly with the doctors and nurses at the hospital, imploring them to release him so he could secure his intended sweetheart's love in time for Valentine's Day. They rejected his pleas on the grounds that a man whose injuries were so severe as to require the removal of his spleen should take a few days to convalesce. In other words, lay around and do nothing.
This displeased him but he had no choice. As he lay there in bed, he thought about his plan and tried to figure out how it had failed. He ran it over and over in his mind and eventually came to the conclusion that it had been too grand and spectacular. A smaller, simpler gesture would have been much easier to execute and could have just as much romantic impact as a grand, spectacular gesture. Women are simple, foolish creatures when it comes to romance, he reasoned, without the discernment to tell the difference between small and simple or grand and spectacular. He was pleased with himself for figuring this out, mostly because he had done so on February 13th. In other words, he still had time to commit the small and simple gesture that would win her heart in time for Valentine's Day.
With mighty effort he pulled himself out of the hospital bed. Taking slow, painstaking steps down the hall to the hospital gift shop. With the last bit of money he had, he purchased a shiny, red, mylar balloon in the shape of a heart and filled with helium. He shuffled out of the hospital before an orderly could stop him and immediately stepped into the path of an incoming ambulance. It started to rain as the heart-shaped balloon slowly floated up into some overhead power lines, causing a transformer to explode, knocking out power for four blocks, including the hospital. In other words, a whole bunch of people in the hospital died.
Somewhere across town, the woman he had hoped to woo watched the story of the hospital blackout on television and expressed scorn, ridicule and pity towards somebody who would equate love with a single, arbitrarily selected date on a calendar and kill a bunch of people in a hospital while getting run over by an ambulance as a result of this confusion. In other words, perfect.

1 comment:

P-Dub said...

Excuse me if I'm wrong, but this isn't a very HAPPY story. Valentines Day isn't over yet... there's still time for a HAPPY story.