Leigh's Views

  Amber As I continued to stare into the fire, I knew I should’ve gotten up and helped with our meal. However, I wasn’t feeling in the mood. To be perfectly honest, I was rather queasy  at this point and food was the last thing I was wanting. Fine, fine, cooking is woman’s work. And as a good wife who was wanting to fix her marriage, I should’ve jumped up in a heartbeat and whipped up a gourmet meal for my love. The radio crackled as he turned it on. A bit of static now has he futz with the dials. Wait, what?! Is that news he put on? No, that isn’t even close to romantic! “Hey, dear, uhm…” I started, “I know you love listening to what’s going on in the world but…” “Amber,” I just knew Mark was rolling his eyes even though I couldn’t see his face from my position by the fire. “you’ve got to stop living in the clouds. Especially now, get your feet firmly planted on the ground.” Gritting my teeth so I wouldn’t scream, “Whatever.” I snorted in reply, trying to focus on the flames

  Mark   We probably would’ve sat in our silent standoff forever, except behind me I could hear a vehicle stopping. Turning my head a bit, I could see the logo of the park on the side of a white truck. Uh oh, did we do something wrong? The park ranger hopped out. Waving a greeting as he said, "Hey, hope you're enjoying your day so far. However, you can't park just off the side of the road like that." He pointed to my car, smiling all the while. “And Sam at the office said neither of you asked for wood. But with y’all in tents, you probably will be needing some. This close to the lake, the mosquitos gonna eat you alive even if you have bug spray. The smoke from a fire will be a huge help.” He chuckled at this. I breathed out a big sigh. My escape hatch had just gone out the window, no making a quick break for it later if things went south. And what was this about being eaten by bugs? The guy was making some weird joke, right? Yeah, I knew about mosquitos in theor

  Mark             The whole troubles in our marriage were stupid from the beginning. As in the start of 2020. Fine, it was mostly my fault. Because it always was. I’d lost my dream job, like so many other people, rather early into the whole global shutdown. However, unlike so many others, I stepped up to the plate. Found a job in two seconds at the local grocery story. Sure, it was for less than half of what I’d been making before. So what if money was tight? We’d get by. But Amber kept nagging me about this and that. All we did was snipe at each other. It just got to be too much. My brother’s lumpy couch started sounding awfully good. Not sure what made me pull the trigger, yet, there I was one night. Stuffing a few items of clothing into my gym bag and stomping out the door. Leaving my screaming wife behind, as I yelled back, “Divorce court as soon as they reopen!” For months I ignored her, her never-ending phone calls to me, her calling my brother at odd hours, her showing up a

Okay, I was spending some time relaxing at a state park. A few days of nothing but enjoying the lake, the squirrels, turtles, deer and other wildlife. Recharging my batteries so to speak. When something odd happens. I’m sitting in my lounge chair, watching the squirrels dance in the trees. Occasionally glancing over at the corner of the lake I can see, checking to see how many turtles are on the log sunning themselves. Then a car drives into the campground loop, stopping on the side of the road. A young man gets out and pulls a big box out of the back seat. As he begins to pull things out of the of the box, I realize it’s a brand-new tent. Still has all the bits and pieces wrapped in plastic, which he’s now struggling with as close to the road as possible. I continued to watch as he’s barely into the camping spot wrestling with the thing. Wondering if I should go tell him he can use all of the space and he needs to pull his car into the site. And if I should also give him a few pointer