He and She

By William Steffey

A doomed couple argues over the inevitable. A man weeps when he's finally given the structure he's needed. A stilted voicemail over a date that never happened.

 

With a ballast of wit and reality, William Steffey's second published work takes on the abstraction of love and does away with frivolity- grounding the reader in snapshots of fulfillment, heartbreak, and reverie. He and She sidesteps the conventional tropes and is privy to the crevices where real love hides.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Aquariphone, LLC.
• Release date: Jun 9, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201948078

Book preview

Contents

Copyright

Preface

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

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Copyright © 2022 Aquariphone, LLC.

"O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend

The brightest heaven of invention…."

- W. Shakespeare

1

The temperature was such that it could be called cool or warm depending on the person, and the green trees played host to a picnic in the big backyard. It was just the two of them, sitting on the comforter that was not a picnic blanket ever before. He always seemed to like her more when she was mad.

I am not like my mother, she reached for the pack of Camels lying between them. She pulled a cigarette halfway out, thought for a moment, then pushed it back in. The cellophane wrapper and the pack itself was not sure- was it happy to receive the cigarette back, or did the pack feel useless? Unwanted? It sat perplexed near the blanket in the grass.

An hour later, he sat writing in the diner. The cheap plastic flowers hanging from the ceiling made him laugh as he tried to relate them to his own life. He then noticed he didn’t need to choose this and that he always chose the ugly and slapped a "hello my