The couple had been in constant conflict since Marion brought the glass squid home. “It was free,” Marion said. When she answered, she stabbed the air with the pliers, as a defense mechanism against intrusiveness. “So you’d bring anything home just because someone gave it to you?” Kristen said. “I won it at the Sky Connexion fair. No one gave it to me.” “How?” “Chugging moon worm juice, what do you think?” There were micro receptors under the surface of the glass, and wires so clear you could only see them if you stuck your nose on it, which you wanted to avoid since it might read your mind and broadcast, out of the small yet powerful speaker at the bottom, that you once pissed on your cousin for fifty dollars and he got an ear infection. Exactly what happened to Marion at the fair. That’s what the squid did. It grabbed any thought, feeling, or memory at random, even things deep in the subconscious you were unaware of, and spilled it all out. No one knew why or how, but that particular squid only selected the embarrassing stuff. It hadn’t been programmed that way. It just did that. What Marion had brought home was a failed prototype. Otherwise, she would have had to win the lottery to buy one of those. Marion grabbed the squid to set it above the fireplace in the living room and it said, “I really hate Kristen’s laugh.” Kristen rushed to the squid, put both hands on it, and it said, “Sometimes, the roundness of Marion’s face creeps me out.” Marion left the room. A week later, Kristen was still annoyed at Marion for the squid, but the argument was long over, so she had to find something else to get mad about. She did. She built a four-foot-tall cylindrical machine on which was written: “The machine that will take the inside-out socks and put them correctly…” Marion had to walk around to read the rest: “…because apparently, you can’t do that.” Marion replied by making a trophy on which LED lights displayed: “Best passive-aggressive aluminum waster.” Kristen added a question mark on Marion’s framed engineering diploma. Marion added ellipsis points to Kristen’s. “What does that even mean?” Kristen said. “I don’t know,” Marion said, “but I hope it pisses you off.” “Somehow, it does.” Both ate pasta on opposite sides of the house. One time, Kristen brushed against the squid while dusting and it said, “I wish Marion would crash into a lamppost with her goddamn dirt bike.” Then, as a reflex, she touched it again, to turn it off, but it couldn’t be turned off, and it said, “My animosity toward the dirt bike is proportional to the time Marion spends with it rather than with me.” This enraged Kristen even more, and she brought her red face out of the living room and then punched Marion’s chess game to death. So Marion installed a metallic door over the drawer containing Kristen’s magazines that could only be opened with her fingerprints. Dogs and Marmalade When Kristen came home from a stressful day at work, she ran to the drawer. Marion listened from the living room, assumed a fighting stance. Kristen swiftly returned. “Open it now,” she said. “No,” Marion said. Kristen replied by grabbing the squid and throwing it at Marion’s head. She expected her to have better reflexes. It wasn’t the case. Marion dropped to the carpet. All lights out. The squid said nothing. It just made a stressed, high-pitched sound, which perfectly reflected what was going on in Kristen’s mind. Also published here. Lead image . source

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