MARCHING ORDERS
MARCHING ORDERS
by Jonella Allen
Cupid, I've got a bone to pick with you.
If you worked in any other industry, you'd have been fired ages ago.
Your aim sucks.
You're clearly out of practice.
You're going to have to start doing better.
Consider this your written warning,
your final notice,
your stale donut with jelly filling that was once covered in powdered sugar
but now sits shriveled and crusty on a paper plate in the break room.
I haven't wanted your particular brand of expertise in quite some time.
Then, when I asked for it, you sent me the perfect man.
Okay, he was hardly perfect.
Who wants perfect anyway?
This guy, he was nice though.
And he liked me.
I liked him too.
So you lined him up in front me,
drew one of those Venus kissed darts,
then let it flutter into haystacks like some feckless summer camp pastime.
So I want you to start explaining.
Explain to me why you chose that moment
to grease the hinges on my defenses.
Explain to me why you gave us so much in common.
Explain to me why those same things are the weapons used to inflict the most damage.
Explain to me why. Why?
I know why.
You've gotten by on the mass produced schmaltz shoveled
into the lockers and backpacks of teenage girls by concupiscent teenage boys.
We girls keep looking for these waffles
with every nook and cranny dripping with butter
and honest to goodness maple syrup.
We girls keep looking for proclamations made on a cliff
at sunset on Oahu's west coast while waiting for the green flash.
We girls keep looking for the knight and the horse and flowers and the ring.
Wait.
Oh.
Holy.
Shit.
Rumpelstiltskin on toast.
Chasing fucking pavements.
Wetsuit wearing cat on the couch.
Marbles. Rolling. Marbles. Flicking. Marbles.
Take them and go home you selfish brat.
I had this. I had all of this.
I had that other guy with the proclamations
and the cliff
and the sunset
and the flowers
and the waffles
and the ring
and Hawaii
and even the fucking horse.
Okay, he wasn't a knight. Seriously. That was the only thing missing.
Oh, and the fact that,
for the most part,
none of those things are what I wanted.
I thought I did.
Refer back to aforementioned schmaltz.
But what it turns out I want
is someone who shares the same interests
and challenges me to keep thinking
and learning
and makes me laugh
and wonder what could happen next
and even makes me angry from time to time
in the name of the ever elusive four letter word
that can also make my heart jump with a well placed smile.
Someone like that fella you had all lined up
before you took one too many shots of Fireball
while trying to settle a bet with Eros
and your bow got shaky
and the arrow snapped in two.
So there you go, Cupid.
There are your marching orders.
Find him. Again.
Not the sappy one, God bless him,
with whom I am still friends today
and thank my lucky stars every Christmas
when I get the card
that he found the girl who wants 2.5 kids
and a summerhouse in the Malibu Colony.
Okay, I admit, the house would be nice.
If you could include the summerhouse
while finding me the guy
who loves David Fincher movies without being a sociopath
and Bret Easton Ellis novels without being a serial killer
and thunder showers on summer afternoons
and long conversations in the corners of restaurants
and road trips with no particular destination
and certainly no planned ahead reservations
and canines more than felines but loves all critters really
and DC more than Marvel but obviously enjoys the movies
and New York more than D.C. but still lives on the West Coast
and Star Wars more than Star Trek but is still grounded to this planet
and me, just as I am, that would be great.
So there you go, Cupid.
There's your assignment.
Your task at hand.
Find him. Then come back for me.
Shoot straight. Get this right.
This is your chance to make two mere mortals very happy.
So there you go, Cupid.