The Martian ponders the white-haired man on the sidewalk. He is baking in the Florida sun, waiting outside the craft shop while his wife gathers materials to make another ceramic doll. His lime-green polo shirt and white slacks match her own.
His children are grown, his youth is gone, twenty thousand days and night of marriage have flown past. His days of power, of protecting and providing, have slipped away. He waits quietly in the sun, a little drowsy. There is no reason on earth for him to be there but one.
From Frederica Mathewes-Green.
If nothing else, I will be taking “Twenty Thousand Days of Marriage” as the title of a story.
J.S. Bangs 