Balance and counter balance

Balance and counter balance

Dustin Alexander

. PROLOGUE .

When you look in the mirror, what do you see? If you smile at your reflection, does it smile back, or does it just show teeth? For those of you scandalous enough to keep a mirror over your bed, do you see the act of lovemaking, or merely watch two bodies grinding together?

From the scientific standpoint, mirrors just reflect light. Rays of light hit it, they return, and voila, you see yourself. If you happen to be holding a bottle of beer, you see that, too. And if you're standing there naked, you don't see the graceful human body that your lover might see. All you see is a sack of flesh stretched crudely over an awkward frame of bone and muscle, with random hairs poking out of concentrated areas.

Ever since I was a boy I was obsessed with reflections and mirrors. If we're shined with two sources of light we cast two different shadows, but if we stand between two mirrors it's just a reflection. We don't cast anything special. But with your shadow, if you raise your right hand, it raises its right hand as well. Your reflection will always do the opposite. If your right eye is swollen shut, your reflection's left eye will be swollen shut.

This led me to my study of opposites. Of balance in nature and counterbalance and all things likewise. Science and philosophy crudely meshed together. Neither fits very well with the other, at least in my eyes, but I believe that science can be a method to create and reinforce philosophy. It is to this end that I have spent countless hours obsessing in laboratories, conversing over dinner with my wife, and locking myself in my workshop. I've spent so much time studying reflections that it has truly become an unhealthy obsession. But I firmly believe this: that as all things in nature have a counterpart or balance, human beings do not.

Our ecosystem may be constantly changing, but no life on Earth has ever been a direct detriment to the planet and its ecosystem, with the exception of us. Human life. There is nothing regulating us. Virii and disease were here when we showed up. But we've subdued disease, we're working on controlling famine, we have guns to protect ourselves from predators, and we're fucking at a purely exponential rate. Teenagers and young women are popping out kids like Pez dispensers.

The greatest enemy of humanity is humanity. The need to victimize others. Sadism. Masochism. Thievery. Burglary. Homicide. Scandal. Infidelity. Suicide. Hatred. Jealousy. Covetousness. Obesity. Lust. Vanity. Sloth. Human life invented sin almost purely so it could partake in it on a daily basis.

But even with all of our sin, even with our hatred for one another, our base need to kill and harm each other, we continue to multiply. The trashy family that has seven kids has secured itself a place in the timeline simply by being ignorant to the existence of contraceptives. Humanity needs balance and order. An end to chaos. An end to sin.

Dolphins have promiscuous sex with each other purely because they can. Sharks eat dolphins. Human beings have promiscuous sex with each other purely because they can. Sexually transmitted diseases hinder humans. Humans continue fucking like rabbits.

Do you see the problem?

I know, I realize I'm rambling, but it's really bringing me to my theory: that there is a counterpart, a balance, to humanity within nature. Somehow, we locked it away. We did something we shouldn't have been able to do. On a cosmic level, in simplistic terms, we cheated fate. It is my belief, whether through divine inspiration or simply an overactive imagination, that our foil in nature is our reflection. That for every human life that comes into being, a second life, an anti-human, is born on the other side of the mirror. They live a life parallel to ours, but they are as hopeless as we are. When I punch the "end" key with the middle finger of my right hand, my counterpart punches it with the middle finger of his left. We are inexplicably tied together, because the mirror - the reflection - binds us. I'm sure my counterpart has reached the same conclusion.

So how does science fit into all this? How am I going to prove my hypothesis and philosophy? I'm gonna shoot mirrors and pools of water with pretty beams. Weird beams. Strange beams. We're gonna see if something turns up. Trial and error was always the best way to work, and so I figure this is a good start. .

CHAPTER I .

"The end of the world will begin not with a bang, but with a whimper," he said to his wife over their coffee cups. It was late at night, or rather very early in the morning, and the only light in the kitchen where they sat was a soft lamp they'd bought during the eighties that had been hanging over the dinner table as long as they could remember. "At least, that's what the quote said. Paraphrased. I don't know. It came to mind and it sounded neat."

"Interesting quote, love. Sure you don't know where you picked it up from?" she replied to him, taking a sip of her coffee.

"I don't have any idea where. It seems so true, though, doesn't it? If we were all going to be vaporized in a nuclear war it would've happened by now. If we were all going to drop dead from an epidemic it would've happened by now, too. All we have that's killing us off is...what...AIDS? Big fuckin' deal."

She chuckled. "Ted, you sound like someone who's disappointed with how easy it is to survive in the world."

"Well maybe I am. I mean, come on, in the dark ages people didn't survive past their forties. Now we've got people rotting away in covalescent homes. Dying of old age. We were never meant to have corpses walking around us. You don't keep a car or a television until it's on its very last legs. But we keep our people alive as long as we can, with tubes and respirators and..."

"Not a very popular opinion you have there, Dr. Death."

He took a sip of his coffee, then grinned at her wryly. "I'm just saying that human beings aren't supposed to live like this. We're too smart for our own good. In a society where a blowjob can kill you, it sure seems pretty damn ironic that a sinus infection will knock you on your ass for a few weeks."

She looked at him quizically. "How is that ironic? For that blowjob to kill you, it'd take years. The sinus infection'll never kill you. And the last couple months that the fateful blowjob is spending wrecking your immune system, you're more than bedridden. You're practically a vegetable."

"I don't know," he said, sighing. He shrugged and looked at the clock on the microwave. "It's two in the morning, you expect me to make sense?"

She laughed. "Ted, you don't make any more sense at two in the afternoon than you do at two in the morning." He laughed in kind, and took another sip of his coffee.

"How do you put up with me, Katie? I don't get it."

"Well, for starters," she said, taking a firm swig from her mug before continuing, "you haven't called me Kate, like my friends do, ever. In your entire life. Second, you have a...practiced tongue." She grinned at him mischeivously. He feigned disappointment.

"Is that all you keep me for?" he said, adding a forced sniffle to it for drama.

"Yes. You have no other redeeming values," she replied flatly. Then she laughed. "I also keep you around because you'll do the housework while I'm at work, and because you make good money as a professor. And because I intend to use you for your money when you become filthy rich off of your journals."

"A relationship founded on money and oral sex." He shrugged. "It sounds as stable as any other relationship started in this day and age."

"Sad, but true," she said, sighing before taking another drink of her coffee.

He took a drink of his as well. "Well, we should probably get to bed, but before we do, I want to thank you for staying up with me to talk, love. It means a lot to me," he said, smiling at her affectionately.

She stood, smiling at him. "Ted, you know I always love talking to you. If I didn't, I wouldn't have been so quick to marry you. It's really your only saving grace, you know. Being a good conversationalist." He grinned sarcastically and rose.

"Duly noted," he answered. She slipped her arm in his and they walked to their bedroom in the same manner as they did for the past eleven years that they'd been married.

"So, you wanna do it or just go to sleep?" he asked nonchalantly as they walked. She yawned.

"We'll do it in the morning, I'm pretty beat," she said.

"Okay. After that we should probably...you know...go do actual stuff instead of trying to spend another day reliving our honeymoon."

"What's the fun in that?"

"I don't know. Screwing all day isn't really very constructive. Besides, I want to spend more time shooting pretty lasers at the mirrors and seeing what happens."

"Want me to take photos of some more reflections for you? Maybe do a few sketches?"

"Would you? I'd really appreciate it." At this point they'd turned down the sheets on the bed, and were stripping down to their undergarments.

"Sure. Sleep well, Ted. I love you." She kissed him gently and he returned her kiss.

"I love you too, Katie. Sweet dreams."

"Always with you."

They snuggled up together under the covers and fell fast asleep. .

CHAPTER II .

I'd like to point out that my wife, Katie, has always humored me. Humored my fascinations. Humored my curiosities. Humored me and been there for me whenever I needed her. That kind of love and loyalty seems to be getting rarer and rarer these days, and I'm eternally grateful to her for it. Most people don't get to enjoy the kind of happiness she and I share.

Katie does sketches of reflections for me, and she takes photos. She understands my feelings about photographs...that they aren't reflections, just sterile copies of reality. But she convinced me that they might be conducive to my studies, so I have her take them for me. I don't know that they really help me at all, but they keep her happy and as long as they keep her from thinking I'm totally losing my mind, I'd say it's better off this way.

She's always been supportive, though, and that's really something you just don't seem to see all that often. I don't know about other folks, but every morning that I wake up and see her face, I flash back to the day I married her, and before that to the day I met her, and each one is seen in a new and equally beautiful light. And I'm thankful to whatever put me on this earth that I have her, because she means more to me than anything.

Even our cat, Proton Accellerator.

Although he does run a close second to her. He doesn't scold me for leaving the toilet seat up. But he'll also be dead in eight years. Katie won't be, because if she were, I think I'd follow soon after. .

CHAPTER III .

"Wake up, my great big fluffy bundle of rat parts and parakeet heads," Ted said as he leaned down to pick the mildly overweight Himalayan cat up off of the bed. "If Katie comes in and finds the bed not made, she'll...well, she'll probably scold you. I'm her favorite, you know."

The cat looked up at him and was clearly not amused. Every time Ted tried to reach down and dislodge the cat from his place on the bedspread, he would swipe at him with his paw and meow, making it perfectly clear that he was not going to move any time soon. "I won't hesitate to yank the comforter right out from under you, you know," Ted said earnestly. The cat, Proton Accellerator, yawned and rested his chin on the bed, sprawling out a little bit more to reaffirm his dominance.

"Well, you asked for it," Ted said. He firmly grasped the edge of the comforter and yanked it off of the bed, startling the cat who promptly jumped off and darted down the hall, nearly knocking over two tables in the process. Ted stood over the undressed bed with his hands on his hips, grinning ear-to-ear with satisfaction. "He'll probably puke in my slippers later, but at least he's not getting me in trouble with Katie."

Ted began the careful process of neatly making the bed, tidying up the corners and tucking in the edges and so forth. Just as he had finished, he heard the front door unlock, open, and then close.

"Teeeeeed! I'm hoooooome!" he could hear Katie yell from the main hall.

He walked out to greet her, and threw his arms around her before kissing her once, gently on the lips.

"I've got some new photos and sketches for you," she said, smiling at him. He stepped away and returned the smile.

"I'd love to see them. Bring them in the kitchen, we'll get a good look at them," he said, walking down the hall and into the kitchen.

The sun poured in from the windows, and the whole room radiated with its brilliance. The faux wood kitchen table now had a brilliant sheen to it, and the tiled counter sparkled an even brighter amber than usual. The brown linoleum even looked brand new as a result of the streaming sunlight.

Katie walked in and placed a gray nylon portfolio on the kitchen table, which she unzipped and fished into for a package of photographs and a sketchbook, which she set neatly down onto the table next to the portfolio. Ted practically raced for the package of photographs, and nearly tore the rubber band off of it in his eagerness to examine its contents.

"Relax there, tiger, they aren't going anywhere," Katie said, smiling at him.

He fumbled through the package until he pulled out a stack of photos, which he rifled through quickly, scanning each one briefly before moving to the next.

"Come here, love, look at this," he said, holding up one photograph on top of the others. She stepped around and looked over his shoulder.

"What exactly am I looking at? It's just a picture of you shaving. I happened to catch the reflection," she asked curiously.

"You should know by now that there's always more than that to a photograph. Look closely. Look at me versus the reflection in the photograph. Photographs are always unnervingly cold and distant, lacking the right color or what have you, but this photo seems to be rather accurate at showing exactly what I want it to."

"Love, I don't really see the difference between you and your reflection."

"Of course you don't, you're not supposed to. But look really closely at how intricate my details are, versus how blurry and plain the details are of my reflection." She laughed and took the stack of photographs out of his hands, grinning at him.

"You overanalyze things," she said.

"I'm telling you, Katie, you can really see the difference between me and the reflection in that picture," he answered.

"I think you need your head examined. The picture's out of focus, you goof. And the angle is off. That's why the reflection isn't as clear," she said as she stuffed the photographs back into their packaging. She wrapped the rubber band back around it, which snapped into place with a satisfying cracking sound. "Besides, you're going to smudge them. We're going to be eating dinner in a half hour and I definitely don't want you smudging the pictures while your fingers are covered in marinara sauce."

"You're cooking spaghetti tonight?" His eyebrows perked with obvious interest.

"With extra mushrooms and hamburger in the sauce," she added with a grin. He stepped up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist.

"I think that, if it were possible, I'm falling in love with you all over again," he said.

"Good, then you can go buy me another $500 engagement ring."

"Do you want to wear that sauce?"

"Maybe later tonight, dear." .

CHAPTER IV .

Katie's a wonderful artist, wonderful photographer, and most importantly, she makes wonderful pasta. The concept of cooking still eludes me, and while outside of her pasta expertise she's really only an average cook, the pasta itself makes up for any issues she might have with making other dishes. Besides, I burn soup. If I didn't have her I'd be eating Campbell's soup from a can, and that isn't healthy.

I still find it amazing how easily she hides her skepticism from me. I know she probably thinks I'm losing my mind about this whole "reflections" and "balance" thing, but it still strikes me as both endearing and noble that she stands by me. This is what wedding vows were made for. Through sickness and through health. And madness is the greatest sickness of all. And every day, I worry that I might succumb to that sickness.

An insane man hallucinates. He sees what he wants to see and what he sees will suit and entertain his madness. In that respect I wonder sometimes if I'm going off the deep end every time I think I see something in a photograph or a sketch. The photograph I saw today, the one that she brought home with her in that stack, however...there's something eerie about it. It's more than just the lack of focus in the picture.

There's something in the picture that I need to see. At least, I think there is. I don't really know. The first genuine breakthrough in my study, or the first sign I'm losing my mind? I can't say either way. After I get home from the university tomorrow, though, I'll screw around with the image in Photoshop.

I wonder if Katie loves me enough to follow me to the asylum. .

CHAPTER V .

"Did you get the equipment set up in the basement, love?" Ted said as he walked through the front door, closing it behind him with his backside. Though his tie was loosened around his neck, he still looked very clean-cut. The grays in the three piece suit accentuated his dark brown hair and complimented his silver glasses. The black dress shirt beneath served more to hide than contrast with his pale skin tone. The Garfield tie was really just for show.

"It's all ready for you, sweetie," Katie yelled up from the basement steps as she walked up to greet him. "Do you need me for anything else?"

"Other than procreation? Actually, I could use your camera while I conduct this study, preferably with you behind it."

"You want me to take photos while you run your light show?"

"That's about right."

"Anything you want me to focus on?"

"Try to get as many angles as possible of the beam reflecting off the mirror and sinking into the pool of water. Get pictures of both the reflection and the sinking."

"You know the dust in the room will make the photographs look a bit odd, right?"

"Better than no pictures at all."

He walked down the steps, dropping his briefcase beside the stairs as he headed for the equipment.

The basement was everything you would expect a basement to look like, but the laser and dust equipment were a different story altogether. There was a machine he'd rigged to saturate the basement with enough dust to be able to accurately see the laser beam as it fired, and the laser itself was emitted from a large gray box. It was positioned to fire up at the ceiling at such an angle that it would reflect off the mirror positioned there and shoot into the pan of water Katie had delicately placed on a small card table.

"You ready to get this experiment moving, Katie?" he yelled up the stairs. She quickly walked down them, carrying her camera.

"Let me get a good angle," she replied as she positioned herself about the basement, adjusting the zoom on her camera lens. "Okay, I'm ready."

Ted activated the dust machine and then turned on the laser. As he had expected, it shot into the mirror and reflected down into the pan of water. Katie began dilligently moving about the basement, snapping photographs of the beam and the water.

"I have an idea," he suddenly piped up. "Keep snapping photos, I'll be right back."

"Okay," Katie said, nodding as she continued taking pictures.

Ted raced up the steps and swiped the peculiar photograph he had left on their dresser the night before, the one he had seemed so enthralled with the day before. He ran back down the staircase and slipped the photograph into the pan of water, adjusting it so that the blurred portion of the picture was being shot directly by the laser. He stepped back behind the laser.

"Get as many shots of that as you can. I know it's weird, maybe it's divine inspiration, but I've got this funny feeling we'll see something if we get some good pictures of that laser hitting that photo," he said.

"Sure, love," she replied, moving about the basement, stopping each time she found a suitable angle to take a picture of the unusual experiment.

Ted remained behind the laser with an expression that bore a mix of anxiety, anticipation, and thoughtfulness. Katie stopped and looked at him curiously.

"Eat something that didn't settle right?" she asked him.

"Huh?" he said, snapping out of his contemplative stupor. "Oh, no, sorry. I was just thinking, that's all."

"You think too much, Ted. That can't be healthy for you."

"What makes you say that?"

"Well, sweetie, a lot of the geniuses in our past were very depressed. Van Gogh was very nearly insane. At one point, intelligence just meshes with insanity. If you ponder something too much you'll become obsessed with it and eventually it really will drive you crazy." She paused, then added, "I don't want to make conjugal visits to the asylum, you know."

"I know, love," he said as he switched off the laser. "I'm sorry, I'm just...I don't know, I can't really explain it. I was struck with a strange idea using a strange photograph, and I have a feeling we'll get even stranger results."

"I'd hope so just to relieve your mind, but I think maybe you ought to reiterate your theories to me later tonight so I'm really clear with what you expect to find. If you do find something strange, that may be a good sign for your work, but a bad omen for ourselves."

He stepped up to her and hugged her, then gently kissed her cheek.

"We'll see. I've been speculating too much about hypotheses I could never really prove. So don't worry yourself about it. I won't," he said soothingly, running his fingers through her hair before kissing her forehead.

She snuggled against him. "We'll talk more over dinner, love," she replied. "You can tell me everything then."

"You're my muse, I think," he said. "You are my brilliance." .

CHAPTER VI .

Had I the world, I would give it to Katie in a heartbeat. She doesn't understand the impact she has on me, on my mind, on my person. I'm not intelligent by nature, I'm intelligent by having a wife that challenges me, that humors me, and most importantly - that supports me. She is everything I could possibly need. But there's always a void even your most cherished loved ones can't fill. That void is my obsession.

I don't know what struck me to make me want to go get the photograph and put it in the water. I don't understand why I've done half of this. I could say I was driven by divine inspiration but I've never believed in that. It brings up far too many philosophical questions and I've always felt that the best way to deal with things you can't prove and can't understand is to utter two magical, wonderful words: "fuck it."

That's right. Fuck it. The answer to your philosophical questions and all of life's mundane little problems is a brilliantly simple piece of profanity. Know what you believe, but to hell with what you don't and can't understand. Is there a God? Fuck it. I don't know.

I firmly believe that there is a balance and counterbalance to everything in nature. I don't know who or what to blame it on, but every experience, every drop of information that I've soaked into my mind tells me that everything in the world has its foil. Everything has an opposing force and more than that, nothing in the world is designed to throw everything else off-kilter. Everything is designed expressly to live in harmony with everything else.

If I were to skirt around "fuck it" and try to articulate my theories on life and everything in the known universe, I believe it would go something like this: There is a higher power, a scale almost, that maintains perfect balance. For the sake of argument, we shall simply call this power "God." In the infancy of man, we acquired consciousness and intelligence. Ingenuity. We were born of two bodies - everyone is a twin. There is a division between the twins. On our side of the mirror, we are generally good or noble. On their side, we are cruel or unforgiving. For one reason or another, they have survived and mirrored us. It's inexplicable. But before the creation of reflection, we existed with these images. And they were our natural foil. We banded together, they banded together, and in a stroke of catastrophic luck, humankind separated itself down the middle. God is dead. God created perfect balance. We defeated our creator and teacher. Perhaps it is the teacher's luck that the student will excel at what he or she was taught.

There are some things in life that are better left unspoken, unheard of, and unknown. If these things are spoken, heard, and known, there is only one logical course of action. They must be unlearned. .

CHAPTER VII .

"Well, Katie, I'm stuffed. Reheated, your spaghetti is still absolutely exquisite," Ted said, smiling across the kitchen table as he rubbed his belly.

"You always say that. I'm beginning to think you lie," she replied, grinning smugly.

"Liars don't marry beautiful women."

"Sure they do. They just don't keep them. Which reminds me...exactly when should I be leaving?" Ted laughed wholeheartedly, then returned her smile.

"I wonder what your reflection is like," he mused.

"I bet she's a prude," she replied, snorting then giggling.

"I can't help but wonder if my theories are horribly, horribly unsound, love. I mean the concept is farfetched to begin with and would make a mediocre tale at best, but on top of that, I have no real proof, no real evidence, and a stack of incongruities that could arise."

"You have your instincts don't you?"

"Yeah, I suppose so. But science and theory simply can't exist based solely on instinct."

"Mankind survived its early days with nothing but instinct. It's how it evolved. Instinct is a powerful thing. Were you a religious man, you could call it the voice of God."

"You're too much of a poet for your own damn good, Katie."

"Don't dodge the subject, Ted. You know I'm right. You just don't want to admit it because it would alienate your masculine sensibilities."

"Yes. That's it. That's it entirely." He smirked, clearly a bit agitated.

She reached across the table and took his hand in hers, squeezing it gently.

"I'm sorry, sweetie. I know how much you hate that."

"It never ceases to amaze me how you put up with all of my idiosyncrasies."

"My love, have you ever read a short story by Stephen King called 'The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet?'"

"Sure, a few times. You know that's one of my favorite stories."

"I read it for the first time shortly after I married you, and it spoke to me. It wasn't just a horror story, it had human feelings and emotions." She cleared her throat, trying to order her words in her mind before speaking them, as if to make sure she wouldn't wound him with them. "Ted," she said, her eyes gazing softly into his, "I worry that you may become so obsessed with this experiment...this philosophy, this theory...that you will lose yourself in it and gradually lose your mind. It has been the fate of every genius since we were able to recognize brilliance. I stand by you because I love you, care for you, and will always be yours. Should I see your sanity wither away, I will entertain your madness for the sake of your genius, the sake of your work, and so that you won't feel alone if you walk that path. If you should lose your mind I will lose my own, because I believe in you and for reasons I can't explain or understand, I believe the words you say. Somehow, for whatever reason, they make sense." She sighed, trying to collect her thoughts again.

"I'm sorry, I'm just rambling," she said before smiling weakly at him.

He sat there for a spell, pondering and considering her words. The impact they had made clearly registered on his face, but the nature of his expression could not be discerned. He ran his fingers through his hair with his free hand nonchalantly, then spoke to her.

"Katie, I can't articulate what your words mean to me. I can't articulate how I received them, I barely understand it on my own. I love you for your faith in me and devotion to me, but it makes me wonder if I shouldn't simply give up on these experiments and return to life as usual."

Her eyes widened, and she leaned across the table, bringing her face closer to his.

"Ted, you can't abandon this work. If it drives us crazy then there will be a reason for it. But there's something compelling about your theories that makes me want to understand you, understand where you're coming from. And if they're tripe and purely useless, I will follow you into your personal Hell. And if we discover that you're right, and we find a way on to the other side of that mirror, then I will follow you into our Hell. Into the real Hell. Because if your theories are true then we will have made a discovery of biblical proportions." He squeezed her hand gently.

"Pursuit of knowledge has led mankind down many dangerous paths. I'm not sure about this. I'm not confident in myself. If I'm right and my experiments succeed, then look at the implications of it. A man will stand on the threshold of undoing what millions gave their all to accomplish."

"Two men, my love," she said as she stroked his hand with her thumb. "Two men." .

CHAPTER VIII .

Philosophical can of worms? You bet. The distance Katie and I traveled tonight is immeasurable. One small step for a marriage, one giant leap into the vast unknown.

It pays to have a partner in crime when you're planning to get caught up in a crime that no punishment exists for. They'll be there to suffer through it with you as your judge determines what your sentence will be.

I can't relate why she feels so strongly about my theories and my hypotheses. I couldn't if I tried. She supports me as much as she can and she is invaluable for it.

She and I crossed a threshold tonight. A personal one. We committed to an idea. We were present, we were mother and father to a new religion. We were there for its genesis. We are the only members of this religion and we don't actively preach it. Christianity has its bible. Judaism has its Torah. What do we have? A husband and wife that an entire world would damn to be crazy as loons.

We will continue our experiments not as a scientist and his faithful wife, but as two scholars seeking information and knowledge that perhaps shouldn't be obtained. If we really are crazy, we'll laugh about this in ten years as we drink tea next to the fireplace. We'll mock our intensity and our fierce determination to uncover what was obviously absolutely nothing. We'll be jokes to our future selves.

But if I'm right, if we're right, then we may very well stumble upon something of biblical proportions. It could raise a lot of philosophical questions. Are we good for restoring order to the world through the release of our natural predators? Or are we evil for lowering man to nothing more than another frightened animal? Will we degenerate into packs running through forests, or will we simply wage war like two rival countries?

If that were to happen, I think calling it World War III would be a bit of an understatement.

If we're wrong and we waste years working on this, it will be the greatest and most settling anticlimax in the history of man. At least, in the history of Ted and Katie Bateman. .

CHAPTER IX .

Ted pored over his computer screen nervously, waiting for the scan of the photograph to finish loading. He drummed his fingers on the desk, sighing, then finally called Katie in. "Katie!" he yelled. "Come keep me company, waiting for this damn thing to load is boring as hell!"

"What kind of husband are you, intentionally inflicting boredom on his own wife?" she hollered back.

"We're not bored when we're together, you know! We usually - nevermind, the scan is finished loading. You should probably come see this anyhow!"

Katie walked back to the den where they kept their computer and its peripherals. Ted sat in front of the monitor, skimming over the newly-loaded image with the mouse. She stood over him and looked over his shoulder.

"What exactly are we looking at?" she asked.

"The photograph you took that we've been screwing around with."

"Ted, how come you never use my sketches?"

Ted's eyebrow perked nervously, and he grimaced for a moment before finally piecing together his words. "Well, while they're beautiful, they're not photographic, picture-perfect representations of what I want to be looking at."

"Then why do you keep asking me to do them?" she asked agitatedly.

"Because in addition to being sexy, a fabulous cook and an all-around wonderful wife, you're a damn good artist." He hoped coating his answer with flattery would prevent this domestic skirmish from escalating into a full-blown episode.

"Don't pull that shit with me, Ted. I'm irritated that you lied to me like that. You know how I feel about liars."

His hopes were not enough. He turned in his chair to face her, and sighed, smiling at her weakly.

"Katie, I apologize for asking you to do those sketches. But they've really helped you improve the quality of your work."

"That's not the point! You lied to me!"

"So? I use your photos, don't I?"

"I don't care about the fucking photos, Ted, you lied to me!"

"Calm down, there's no reason to get so riled over this. I apologized for it. What do you expect me to do? What do you want me to say?"

"I don't know, Ted. I'm just a little hurt, that's all." He wrapped his arms around her waist and smiled up at her.

"Well then, as useful as a scan is, I'd actually like you to sketch this photograph."

She glared down at him. "Don't patronize me."

"No, I'm serious. Do a very large sketch of it. We won't scan the sketch, but it'll work out for both of us. You'll get some more practice and you'll probably catch some details by sketching it that I would've missed just staring at the scan. Do it in black pencil to give it good contrast and we'll see if we can pick up anything. Maybe do a comparison of the two and find something I missed looking at the scan. Okay?"

She sighed and finally relented. "Fine...okay...I'll do the sketch for you."

"Okay, I'll unload the image and you can take the photo and get to work. Oh, remember we have to go out to dinner with Rick and Christy tonight. Okay?"

She sighed again, then smiled at him, if a bit weakly.

"God damn it, Ted. Why can't you be more of an asshole?"

He grinned up at her. "I can. But you'll never see."

"Why is that?"

"I don't want you to see anything but the very best of me. Your opinion of me is the most important one."

"You're weird."

"So are you."

She slipped away from him and grabbed the photograph out of the scanner. "I'm gonna go get to work, Ted," she said, smiling. "You go feed the cat and clean his litter box."

"Gee," he said, wincing. "Thanks."

"No problem," she said, her smile growing wider as she walked out of the room.

Ted scratched his head in exasperation. .

CHAPTER X .

For a second, I almost felt like I was humoring Katie by asking her to do that sketch for me, but then it occurred to me that she might pull some details out of the photograph that I wasn't expecting. By paying attention to the picture, she puts herself in a position to notice things I wouldn't. A difference in the length of the nails between my reflection and myself, or maybe a winking eye. Something I couldn't see in the picture just skimming over it.

I'm not humoring her. Katie's an excellent artist and if anyone can do a photo-realistic sketch, she can. I know she pays very careful attention to detail when she copies something, and it reflects itself very well in her work. She's done a couple of sketches of me, of myself, of all kinds of things. Sometimes you really can't tell the difference. Every new piece of work she does still amazes me.

So tonight we're going to go see Rick and Christy. They're both pretty straight-laced, straightforward people. They were my friends back in high school but some bad blood between me and Christy came up and it's stuck for a while. The only reason I still even speak to her is because she married Rick, an old friend of mine. Katie merely tolerates her, but did make a good attempt at trying to persuade us to start getting along again.

You see, Christy's indecisive. It shows every day she lives her life. And it drives me absolutely crazy. She's not just indecisive about little things. She's indecisive about everything. And whenever she makes the wrong choice she can't think of anything to do but blame someone else. She went out with Aaron instead of Rick once, and blamed Aaron for, and I paraphrase this, not telling her that she should go out with Rick instead. This raises a great big "what the fuck" flag in my mind.

I think the biggest victim of Christy's indecisiveness actually isn't Christy. It's Rick. Rick's in the worst marital relationship in the history of time but he won't leave her because his parents would string him up for it. Not only does Christy slap him when he makes a mistake, like a mother scolds her child, but she's fucking other people behind his back. And naturally, because she's indecisive, it's not just one guy. It's a lot of guys. And one of these days, Rick's going to go in to see the doctor and the doctor's going to tell him, "I'm sorry sir, but you only have a few years to live. You've been infected with HIV." And Rick will wonder how he got it and then I'll have to tell him. It's an accident waiting to happen. I'd love to meet Christy's reflection. I'll bet she's a selfless angel. Because Christy's an egocentric bitch.

Dinner's going to be hell. .

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