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((Triple Saturday -- Page 1 of 3))
He didn’t want to think about it. Erisa was still young. Barely even in her thirties. When the time came...

No. That was not today’s concern. Or even tomorrow’s. That was a lifetime away.

He just needed to stay focused on the task at hand. It may have been tedious watchman’s work, but that was fine. It was similar to meditation, in a way, requiring discipline of the mind. Patience. Attentiveness.

Those were not qualities his wife possessed.

“Ugh! I don’t know how you can do this all day, dove!”

“I told you that you would be bored, my dear.”

“Oh, don’t give me that! Entertain me!”

“No.”

“Wah...? How dare you.”

“Feel free to return home at any time. It will not be getting any more exciting than this. I promise you.” If he’d actually expected there to be any ‘excitement’ today, he wouldn’t have agreed to letting her accompany him.

“You really know how to kill the mood, don’t you?”

For a moment, Parson considered telling her that he was accustomed to killing a lot more than just moods, but he thought better of it. A year ago, he might’ve said that to her, but after the passing of her mother, things had changed. Now he felt as though saying something like that would just make Erisa worry. And for all her talk, Parson knew that his poor wife certainly didn’t need any more of that in her life, right now.

“Couldn’t you just loosen up a little?” she was saying. “You’re so tense all the time. It’s not good to go through life like that. You’ll drive yourself mad, dove.”

Parson recognized that familiar lilt in her voice. A faint hint of sincerity. Of concern. It was sometimes difficult to parse out from all of her snarky and less serious overtones, but he’d gotten better at picking up on it recently, he felt. “Isn’t that what I have you for?”

“Oh? I thought you just kept me around to cook your meals and wash your uniforms.”

“Those do come first, yes.”

“Hmph. One day, you’ll see that I’m right. You’ll look up and realize that life is just like this here ice cream. You’ll realize that you’ve let it melt.”

“That doesn’t seem to have stopped you from finishing it.”

“How do you know I’ve finished it? You haven’t so much as glanced at me this whole time.”

“I assumed you were done after I stopped hearing you licking the bowl clean.”

“...Alright, smart guy. Yeah, I finished my ice cream. Now why don’t you go fetch me some more? Like a good husband and provider?”

“Tempting, but I think I shall continue watching for invaders from the south.”

“Don’t you have peons for that sort of thing?”

“I have you.”