Robofootball: Doublespin

“Jess, can you hear me? I wish you would or could just snap out of it.” Carly put her arms around him but Jess’s limp body did not waver or so much as twitch. There was a tiny amount of stubble on his chin and little more pronounced hair on his upper lip in the makings if a moustache, but even at 17, he had only been shaving about once a week.

“It’s not fair,” said Carly. She looked at the window, early December, dark dreary, high 30-degree weather. Christmas would be coming soon but for the first time in her life, she wasn’t looking forward to it. In his little window, she could see a cold rain misting in the parking lot. She had saved the music from her special CD to her computer and then transferred it to her IPod. “It’s Raining” was playing in her ears by The Detroit Cobras, she sang the first few phrases and then burst into tears.

Was it too much to ask for? To have him whole again as a boy or man? In true flesh and blood? Breathing on his own and speaking to her? Flashing that shy grin, holding her hand, squeezing her buttocks, and copping a little breast feel?

“Damn it,” Carly said aloud. “I want him back. We were going to go to school together, I’m sure of it. There will be no other beside you Jess. Never, that much I promise, as long as there’s any hope at all. Come back to me Jess. Take me out to the lake again. Let’s go for a drive, a picnic, sometime in the bedroom with your music playing. God I miss you Jess, come back to me, please.” By Christmas time, he would not awaken and was relocated to Ann Arbor, and not too long afterward, he would disappear.

“Detroit’s so bad this year they might lose their bye week.”

Dennis Miller