J. Alan Nelson
After once-upon-a-time, after legendary deeds, after magic, after the evil trickster was hexed into a sebiferous slurvian saprostomous rat, the prince and princess live happy ever after. Children read about them. Grownups live vicarious lives through the perfectly gendered couple.
Now, centuries later, the prince sips a K-cup coffee at breakfast. He contemplates the coffee pod holder on the counter. K-cups with Arabica from Brazil, Robusta from Uganda, Liberica from the Philippines, and Excelsa from Viet Nam.
The coffee smells of rich ground roasted coffee beans. The orange tulips, shipped from the Noordoostpolder, smell of tulips. The prince and princess smell better than newborn babes: a perfect match of histocompatibility complex proteins.
This K-cup plastic will break into smaller and yet smaller pieces of plastic, the prince says. It will choke and kill wildlife and contaminate the land. Yet I’m so happy.
The princess sips her coffee. Yes, she says. I think of the huge amount of child labor picking and sorting these beans 10 hours a day in the heat. It’s good coffee. Yes. I’m happy too.
I read about these people murdered in Ukraine…yet, I’m happy, he says.
Yes, the princess says. And I saw a report my phone about all the mass shootings in Texas, so they made it easier for people to get guns and shoot each other, and I’m so happy.
Yes, the prince says. And I saw a megachurch preacher saying that If you wanted a happy ever after, give him money and then after you die you get that. And I’m happy as I ever was.
And we see so many people die. We see their bodies rot into a mess. And I’m still happy, the princess says.
We see children suffer terrible things, be caged at the border, and worse. And I’m so happy, the prince says.
We see atomic explosions, the princess says. We see people vaporize. We see people melt and slough away from radiation. And we’re so so happy.
The prince ponders. He sniffs. The coffee smells rich.
Yes, the princess says. So rich.
Time seems to not mean a thing, the prince says. To others it seems such a dessert of weariness. Of frustration. Of madness.
Yes, says the princess. People are so uncertain. They worry. Yet they are so transient. They never enjoy the Now.
I wonder, the prince says. He sips coffee. He listens to the silence.
What? the princess asks.
Maybe we’re the bad guys.
Interesting, the princess says. Yes. Yes. I think so.
You agree.
Yes. We never age, we have wonderful meals and wonderful sex. These horrors never affect our sweet sweet sweet happiness.
Yes. Remember when Delilah cut Sampson’s hair, when the Philistines blinded him, and then Sampson crushed the Philistines when he brought the temple roof down?
Oh yes. How we laughed. So long ago yet still you can make me giggle.
They look at each other. They sip coffee.
Remember when we walked through Bucha after the Russians withdrew? the prince asks.
Yes, the princess says. We stepped across the bodies through the streets and couldn’t find an open restaurant.
Or even a bar, the prince says.
The darkness of the coffees swirl eddies of twilight and shadow.
We’ve done terrible things, the princess says.
Yes, the prince says. We’re quiet evil. Do the others hate us?
Do we care?
They pause. They stare into each other’s eyes. Their eyes gleam with the brilliance of many hues.
No, they both say. They sip coffee.
It’s good coffee, the prince says.
So rich, the princess says. A silky body you can really feel on the tongue.
They smile.
Let’s fuck, the princess says.
Yes, says the prince. And afterwards, let’s go try that new crepe restaurant.
Yes, says the princess.
And they fuck a great, loving, sensual wild out-of-control fuck while the broken parts of the world do not reunite but break into smaller and sharper fragments. Then the princess and the prince lie nude, interlaced half-spooning half-lounging like living, glowing marble forms made more than 2,000 years ago that sat under diffused light in a Naples museum just before it blew apart in an Allied bombing raid in1943. Cozy as twin flames in the heart of an inferno in Lviv, they live on. On and on and on. Happy ever fucking after.
J. Alan Nelson, a writer and actor, has stories, essays and poems published or forthcoming in journals including New York Quarterly, B O D Y, Conjunctions, Stand, Acumen, Pampelmousse, Main Street Rag, Texas Observer, California Quarterly, Connecticut River Review, Adirondack Review, Red Cedar Review, Wisconsin Review, South Carolina Review, Ligeia, Strange Horizons, Illuminations, Review Americana, Whale Road Review and North Dakota Quarterly. He has received nominations for Best of Net poetry and Best Microfiction. He also played the lead in the viral video “Does This Cake Make Me Look Gay?” and the verbose “Silent Al” in the Emmy-winning SXSWestworld.
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