Ted opened the fridge. The light came on, but instead of the usual clear, bright, illuminating light, there was a sickly green luminescence, much like the glowing of some kind of deep cave fungus. It looked as if something ghastly had crawled in there, died a particularly unpleasant death, and then exploded.
---
His parents were doing it again. It was the same thing, every time. He wondered why they kept persisting in this way; on occasions he suppose that they were quietly hoping that he would crumble and give them what they wanted.
‘But you’ve had dozens of girlfriends. Surely one of them was good enough?’
His mother was pleading with him, and it was only years of experience that kept him from arguing with her. It would be futile to point out that the reason he’d had as many girlfriends as that was that they’d gotten sick of him and dumped him like the proverbial hot potato. Unless he found a way to bring a set of asbestos gloves (metaphorical of course) to the relationship, he’d be in the bin again. The problem was he had no idea what exactly it was that kept on making his once-infatuated harem of women turn cold.
He didn’t have any trouble meeting women, or even picking them up; on the contrary, they seemed to throw themselves at him. He’d gotten names, phone numbers, invitations, and more from places as innocent as the post office, library, and once even on one of his infrequent visits to church (it was Easter and his mother had insisted).
They just didn’t hang around. He’d racked his brain, mentally retracing his steps, and he still could not work it out. One time he’d even set up a number of voice-activated microphones and recording devices so he could replay as many of his conversations as he could, and spent hours listening to them and trying to spot when it was that he screwed up. It didn’t help. Either he didn’t have the ability to recognise a faux pas when he heard it, or it just wasn’t in the actual words.
He listened to his words to see if he said anything noticeably stupid or off-putting, and also to theirs, to try and pick up any obvious pre-emptive coldness or negativity on their part. Nothing. They were cheerful, positive and affectionate up to the moment they ended it. Most of them were so upset about the whole affair that they became so distraught he wound up consoling them and telling them that it was alright, he’d get over it, and not to worry about him. It was a strange role reversal indeed.
One time, for a few fleeting moments, he thought about setting up a camera to see if there was anything physical he could spot, but decided against it.
His mother wouldn’t understand any of this, of course. She’d shake her head, roll her eyes and mutter to herself. His father would bark in his gruff voice, ‘you know your mother’s right, son. Can’t be a playboy all your life.’
He just couldn't win.
---
Gordon had enjoyed a brief period in the Sixties as a hippy; he'd gone all the way — long hair, beads, tie-dye — even a dilapidated Volkswagen Kombi with flowers and peace signs painted on it. It got dull after a while (the life, not the Kombi) even with all the drugs and the music and free love. Not that he’d participated in too much free love, since the girls he met hadn’t found him very interesting.
The drugs? Well, he’d smoked a lot of pot, but stayed away from any of the harder stuff after he’d had a bad acid trip. He shuddered when he thought about it, nearly forty years later. He’d hallucinated for several days. It got very frightening when the neighbours’ chickens started telling him about their plot to take over the world. They were going after Colonel Sanders first — crimes against chickenkind. He’d told them he was a vegetarian; they’d clucked their approval and stalked off to hunt for subversive caterpillars hiding in the tomato patch.
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