• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 965 0

and she preferred it that way. Even though she leaned toward being a little prudish on the subject, she was not frigid by any means—a fact that delighted Macky, but embarrassed her and still made her blush. “You don’t have to talk about it, Macky,” she would say whenever Macky would compliment her about how sexy she was. But it did please her, and every once in a while she would take her special bubble bath on a Wednesday or Thursday just to surprise him; unlike her, he did not need to be forewarned. She supposed all men were like that, but she certainly was not going to ask. Norma and Macky had been going steady since the seventh grade and married at eighteen. Norma had never dated another boy so her knowledge of the opposite sex was limited to Macky Warren and that was fine with her. She liked her life exactly as it was right now, and wouldn’t you know it, just when she finally had everything under control, Aunt Elner picked this very time to have some crazy near-death experience and get her all confused!

Norma arrived at the hospital in time for breakfast. The orderly had just placed Elner’s breakfast tray on her table.

“Well, hey!” said Elner when Norma walked in. “How did you get here so early?”

“I decided to try and beat the traffic. How are you this morning?”

“My bites are itching a little, but other than that I’m fine. Have you come to take me home?”

“I don’t know yet. I hope so, but I haven’t talked to the doctors.”

“I hope so too, I’m ready to go home. Look at this,” said Elner, holding up a biscuit. “Hard as a rock. Oh well, the scrambled eggs are pretty good, but all they give you here is apple jelly. Have you had your breakfast?”

“No, not yet.”

“Don’t you want some of this?”

“No. You eat it all, you need your strength. Everybody at home sends their love, I think some of the girls might be coming over later. Did you sleep all right?”

“Oh, sure, except they kept waking me up all night giving me shots and taking all my vitals. They sure keep an eye on you here, too much so, if you ask me.” She showed Norma her cup. “Look, this coffee is not very strong. Maybe later on you’ll get me some from somewhere else.”

“I will, but I had something I wanted to ask you.”

“What?”

“Well…about what you told me yesterday…about your…” She looked around, and whispered, “Visit?”

“I thought I wasn’t supposed to talk about it?” Elner whispered back.

“You can talk to me, just not anybody else. Tell me again, exactly, what were the messages you were supposed to deliver?”

“Well, let’s see…Raymond said, ‘The world is getting better all the time,’ and things of that nature.”

“Uh-huh…and what did Neighbor Dorothy say again?”

“She said that life is what you make it, and what you make it is up to you. Smile, and the world is sunny.”

“And that was it?”

“Pretty much so. Why?”

“Oh, I don’t know, I guess I expected something a little more profound, more complex, than ‘Life is what you make it.’”

“Me too, but I think that’s the good news, life is not as complicated as we thought.”

“Are you sure that’s all they said? Did they say anything about the end of the world?”

“Not specifically, but Raymond did say to hang in there. I think that’s a positive message myself.”

“Oh, yes, but positive thinking is not all that new. I was hoping for something with more of a revelation, something we haven’t heard before.”

“Well, Norma, just because you’ve heard it before doesn’t make it wrong.”

“No, I understand that, but—”

The door suddenly swung open and a nurse said, “Mrs. Shimfissle, we have a radio station calling, wanting to do a live feed with you…somebody named Bud?”

Elner’s eyes lit up. “Oh, it’s the Bud and Jay show! Can I tell them about the chicken and the egg? I won’t say where I heard it.”

“Oh my God,” thought Norma, “Aunt Elner, you are not going on the radio, let me talk to them.”

A few minutes later Bud of the Bud and Jay show said to his listening audience, “Well, folks, just spoke to Elner Shimfissle’s niece in Kansas City, and she says Mrs. Shimfissle can’t come to the phone quite yet but that she’s fine, and