Maryanne revisited: Just Enough for a Blink.

Maryanne's toes pointed straight up to the ceiling above her, back slightly arched and if there was a connect-the-dot line between her slopey nose and the skylight above her it would be absolutely straight...no bend whatsoever. Her eyes, a certain green that made everyone think of frogs when they looked at them, were bloodshot and tearing as she timed the seconds she could count the stars (without blinking) out of her skylight. At about two and a half minutes, record time for this star counting veteran, her obscenely large phone buzzed like a defective vibrator—on-off-on-off. She ignored the first set of rings expecting a voicemail, but it only encouraged them to call again. Maryanne blinked. Too teared up to see who was calling, she blindly answered. It was no one. Or rather it was someone, but she pretended it was no one. She answered speaking some twisted form of Mandarin.
“Maryanne, is that you?” But she’d only respond in jibberish with the occasional "hello" in Mandarin...
“Hello? Is this…Maryanne I think you’re cutting out. If this is you, I need to tell you that I’m back in town and I’d like to see you, Rusty too if you want. I’ll even…well, I’ll even hang out at your apartment. Just this time…well, nevermind, just call me back.” A tear rolled down her cheek from burning blind eyes, and she hung up the phone. She lay back down and Rusty came around the corner having just awoken from his slumber he was ready for some attention. He licked her face as she lay there gazing…restarting her star counting.
He licked her forehead, but this would not distract her enough to blink. Bored to pieces he spitefully licked her nose.
Cheerios.
Stale Cheerios.
She smiled. Counted star number 50 and blinked.
“Perhaps tomorrow it’ll be clearer.”


(Credit to Devin Lai for this gem!)