I worried after I fell in love that I would lose my edge. Edge is everything in my business. Love blunts every edge; I don\u2019t care who you are. It\u2019s cruel if I don\u2019t stay sharp, razor sharp. Taking a swipe at someone while something blunts my edge? Well let\u2019s face it they suffer. If I\u2019m not hampered by the preoccupations of love, that swipe is painless, goes without a hitch, you\u2019re dead before their mind can reach pain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yes, I\u2019m a professional. It take care of the business in a quick and professional. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was in love once before, years ago when I was young. I mean, you know love. I can\u2019t help what I am, I can\u2019t. She didn\u2019t understand, and she moved to Milwaukee. It devastated me. I think disappointment gave me my edge. I wanted to hate her, I really did but I couldn\u2019t. Years later I had a job in that area and I looked her up. She was still fine, and she seemed happy. I said hello, and she seemed edgy, a little scared but okay. Next thing I know she\u2019s in Green Bay, then she\u2019s in St Paul and divorced. I called her a year later; you know just to check on her, make sure she was okay. She was in Seattle. I point blank asked her if she wanted me to look up her ex-husband and she said no. She was emphatic about it, so I didn\u2019t and I won\u2019t. She\u2019s in Tokyo now, seems to be doing all right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I met my new lease on life during an emergency room visit in Chicago. One of those big hospitals. I had run into a little problem in New Albany, thought I was okay but I started running a fever while vacationing in Chicago. I love that city; Chicago. Anyway, I met Alice there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Alice is tough as nails and hates her name so I call her Honey and Babe and things like that. She\u2019s an emergency room nurse and man, some of the stories she tells makes my skin crawl. I mean she\u2019s seen shotgun wounds, and people beaten to a pulp. Then there are the car accidents and the scum of the earth who hurt their kids. I was in tears one night; I don\u2019t know how she stays sane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She\u2019s beautiful too. Clean. Her hair is always glossy and she doesn\u2019t fan out on the makeup; a little liner, when I\u2019m in town and she puts on a little mascara, a little lip gloss. I can still see a few freckles across her nose. So sweet, so dedicated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I, of course, tell her I have no family. I\u2019m not an idiot, I keep her well protected. I am human; some may doubt that but I am human. She loves to read old novels and I\u2019m understanding why. I like The Portrait of Dorian Gray and The Invisible Man\u2013man can you imagine how I can relate?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If I\u2019m not hampered by the preoccupations of love, that swipe is painless, goes without a hitch, you\u2019re dead before your mind can reach even pain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[11,13,24,23],"class_list":["post-159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-flash-fiction","category-short-fiction","tag-amwriting","tag-flashfic","tag-vss","tag-writing"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1911,"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159\/revisions\/1911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}