I was in love and that was how it started. It ended when one day a friend told me she is out to kill me. She almost did. But until that moment I had never noticed. Love is strange that way. You start enraptured and end in a ditch wondering how you got there. These many years later I realized there were warning signs.
Was it a sign when I asked her to marry me and the next day she suddenly proclaimed I had changed, I was a different person. One day I am Michael the next day my body had been snatched by an alien force she must destroy. I never noticed the change. Was the second enlightening moment on the honeymoon? We opened the curtain of our honeymoon suite to discover three rainbow colored hot air balloons on a big grass field. We walked down to the lake beach only to discover that a circus was performing. We even were fortunate enough to see a little bit of a water show. Surprises were around every corner. The gardens were beautiful. The food was good. The shows were fun. It was everything one could want and more. Just as we passed the exit gate on our way home she announced she had to go to the bathroom. I thought she was joking so I grinned and drove on “Yea I am sure you have to go,” I said. When I passed the first exit she exploded. Why hadn’t I stopped? I was being cruel. I realized then that she was not kidding and we needed to stop. When the second exit came I saw no signs for a gas station or restaurant so I passed, anxious to get to the next exit. Unfortunately, as we passed the exit we saw in the distance a gas station. I was torturing her she proclaimed. The next stop did not come for another twenty miles. She held this against me the rest of the marriage and would tell everyone our honeymoon was a disaster, I was cruel, and I am sure in private to her friends she proposed I had been body snatched. Maybe this was a time for reflection but hey we were young so I went on. One day as we were sitting, she told me she hated the way I breathed. ‘Why did I have to breathe’, she said. She said I should just stop breathing if I could not do a better job. I looked at her; she was not kidding. I can only chalk this up to a lame attempt to kill the alien inside of me. If I did not breathe the alien would have to leave my body and I would be restored. Yes I would be dead but finally at peace. Or was it when she blamed the planned pregnancy on me. My alien had used its mind power and overwhelmed her. ‘How dare you get me pregnant like we planned,’ she said. I or at least the alien was responsible for every pain of pregnancy. It was inexcusable what I had done to her. She never forgave me for this. My eyebrows were now permanently arched in that WTF way. But onward I marched. Maybe I should have realized something was up when she told our friends that our best vacation was the one in which I barfed continuously and walked as a zombie through the streets of St. Augustine. She said I was the most affectionate I had ever been. I remembered being very affectionate when I was thanking her for the trash can to barf in. Maybe the alien had completely taken over my body and I missed the tender moments of bliss on that vacation. Maybe that time we went to therapy should have been a heads up. The counselor, in one of the most bizarre moments of my life, grabbed me by the throat and started shaking me to see if I would be seized by anger or end up crying on the floor. Or maybe he was trying to shake the alien out of me. For my part I looked him threateningly in the eye and told him to release me. It was the best therapy session she had ever had she said. And when I said I would not go back to him she declared I did not want to work on this marriage. She now looked at me as the Dangerous Husband with an alien inside. Or maybe I should have figured something was up when we separated and eventually reunited. My only request for moving back in was that a year from now she did not change her mind. We were doing what I thought was well. But on the exact day of a year from when I came back she let me know she wanted out. Now I was getting the picture. Alien’s requests naturally were not to be abided by but resisted. We decided to give it one last shot so we went to therapy. We spent the first half working on my faults. She listed so many I never knew anybody could have so many. My alien must have been working overtime. I made every change she requested. I was determined to improve for the marriage. She claimed I was only doing all this to impress the counselor. I wanted the counselor to think highly of me but believe me I would not have gone through all that for the therapist. But now that I think about it an alien who did not want to be exposed would. Amazingly she ran out of complaints about my behavior. The counselor said if she was through, it was time to work on areas she might need to improve. She looked at me and the counselor like we were crazy. She said I was faking. It was all some kind of charade to make the marriage work. She was not going to be fooled by my alien and the alien she now strongly suspected living in the counselor. She stormed out of the room accusing me of faking everything. Now I am a slow learner. The marriage was over but I wanted to at least remain on friendly terms with her for the sake of our son if nothing else. Aliens do not know the concept of alienation that humans are supposed to have after divorce. So I continued to tell people what a nice capable person she was. Meanwhile she was telling people I beat her and had major anger issues. She even claimed I would not have achieved my seminary degree without her and that she had done all of my work and I could not do anything without her. After all aliens could not understand the convoluted theology of humans. I lost friends because of my neglect and the accusations she was making. Yet I still was trying to be on friendly terms. Aliens are that way. This went on for a couple years until one of my friends shook me and said you know she is out to kill you. The shaking must have worked; the alien was now gone. Suddenly I got the message. She hated me. I am a slow learner especially when aliens are interfering with my neural pathways. She wanted me to suffer so that the alien was no longer able to withstand the pain and would leave my body. Her actions were the greatest act of love one could receive or at least that is the way I choose to look at it. Sometimes you spend fourteen years as a body-snatched human and are unable to see eye to eye with another human. Insight is sometimes earned the hard way. It was not as bad as she believed and it was obviously not as good as I believed. But when you are in love as the French say C’set la Vie. Or as Eddie Murphy once said Shit Happens. Or na-nu na-nu; that is odd I have no clue where those words came from.
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