"Whensday - a short story by Patrick O'Leary" - читать интересную книгу автора (O'leary Patrick)

Whensday - a short story by Patrick O'Leary



Whensday
a short story by Patrick O'Leary
So my wife is typing at the computer and I'm reading Vachss and she says,
"How do you spell Wednesday?"
She's staring at the screen like it's talking Finnish.
I laugh cause I know what she means. "Wed-Nes-Day."
"That's what I wrote. That can't be right."
"It is."
"It looks weird."
"I know."
"Are you sure? That's how you spell it?"
"Yup."
"Positive?"
"Yup. I know. I've felt exactly that way."
Beep. "Well, the spellcheck says that's right."
"It's right," I say. "You know what's really funny? What part of your mind
is having a hard time with it? I mean, you must have read it, seen it,
said it a million times."
"Wed-Nes-day."
"But that's not how we say it. We say--"
"--Whensday."
"Right. That's the problem. The verbal side of your brain is saying
'That's not the way I say it.'" I think about it. "It is seeing the
opposite of what it says. The 'd' never comes before the 'n' when you say
it. It's hearing it as backward."
"Hmmm. You're right."
I wonder if there are lots of things like that. Things we got backward
which we don't even know.
Like the first time I kissed her. It was a dark and we were leaning
against the cold concrete of a Catholic church. No, that was later. I
mean, that was where I asked her to marry me. And then we went to a
restaurant and had fish and chips and I knew the waitress and we were so
giddy she knew something was going on and we had to tell her, had to share
our joy. "We're engaged," we said, or she said, I said. I don't remember.
But, later in the parking lot I kissed her. For the first time. I remember
that. A good hour or so after I had asked her to marry me, I kissed her.
"You were virgins when you got married?" my friend asked.
"Hardly."
"But you hadn't had sex."
"Not with each other. Not officially."
"What's that mean?"
"Use your goddamn imagination."
After a minute he said, "You fooled around...but you never...?"
"Right."
"Wow."
"We were kinda religious," I explain.