Rabu Rabu

After the baking pavement, it was cool inside the convenience store. There were only two people shopping at the moment, an older man and his daughter, who kept trying to sneak a bag of gum bears into the shopping basket, making the man take it out and return it to its shelf each time. Harumi bought tea and a packet of cookies. Hey boyfriend loved cookies – she'd discovered this soon after she'd run away from home, with nothing but the school uniform she'd happened to be wearing at the time, and moved into his place. She had a sweet tooth herself, so that worked out nicely.

When she approached the register, she noticed the card stand. GET WELL SOON, it said, and TO THE WORLD'S BEST MOTHER and GREETINGS FROM SUNNY MABASE and DON'T THINK OF IT AS 40 YEARS OLD. There was even one with a cat that said I MAED YOU A CHEEZBURGER BUT THEN I EATED IT :(. None of the ones was the one that caught Harumi's eye, though.

She picked it out of the stack and looked at it closely. The front showed a nervous-looking cartoon boy holding a single flower to someone outside of the picture. LOVE IS BLIND was printed above this. She turned the card over and read the back. The flower had been accepted by a girl with a vast overbite, ratlike teeth and glasses like the bottom of a beer bottle. REALLY, REALLY BLIND, this side said.

Harumi thought he might like that. The genders were sort of wrong for her to be giving him the card, but those were details and anyway, it was the thought that counted, right? It was just the sort of thing you bought and that then ended up pinned to the fridge with humorously shaped fridge magnets. And they had an anniversary coming up soon. She wondered if he remembered. Should she write it down on the card, or would he be able to guess? Better to be sure.

She borrowed the store pen to fill out the card, then threw it in a plastic bag with the cookies and the box of tea. As she left the store, she saw the old man and his daughter just a few steps in front of her. The little girl had her bag of gum bears after all. Harumi smiled at her, and the girl smiled back.
Good omen.

*

She unlocked the door into their apartment and stepped into the first of their two rooms, which was the kitchen as well as the dinning room.

“I'm home, dear,” she said, but he did not answer. Since he was not in the kitchen, there was really only one other place he could be. In the bedroom, watching the TV, which was not precisely so small you could call it a pocket model but got pretty close.

She was unpacking the tea and the cookies when she heard a door creak open behind her. She didn't turn. So, he'd finally come out, had he? The card was lying on the kitchen counter. She wondered if he'd notice.

There was a low, slobbering noise, like a whale trying to speak with its mouth full of plankton. Harumi turned around.

*

The first impression was that of a massive overgrown slug. It was raised half upright, and the bottom was covered with fleshy pink legs, like boneless fingers. Several smaller mouths flanked a single large aperture that began somewhere halfway down its belly and proceeded upward to the head. Mandibles and manipulatory tentacles were thick around this primary mouth, pink and purple and swollen with veins. from the center of a pock-marked stared a single massive, yellow eye that grew orange toward the edges. Along its back grew a bony ridge like scattered teeth.

It moved toward her ponderously, taking great care to balance a massive, heavy body on its multitude of pink feelers. It extended the longest pair of mandibles, wrapped them around her waist and pulled her towards it. The yellow-orange eye stared without blinking. A blue-veined tentacle seized her left arm.

“I bought you a card,” Harumi said.

The monster looked inquisitive.

“You forgot!” Harumi accused.

The yellow eye widened in realization. Another deep, oceanic rumble came from deep within the creature. Then it gave her a peck on the cheek.

“Well,” Harumi said, “You had better make it up to me then. Take me out dancing.”

The monster swept her off her feet. Love is blind.