“Metaphor” by Elyse Durham (Fiction ’22)

Metaphor

The seventh year we were married, our wedding rings fell off our fingers. This is not a metaphor. We loved each other; we were faithful; we just couldn’t get our rings to stay on, and so they fell.

They fell into toilets and pots of soup. They fell into trash cans and open shoes. They fell down the laundry chute and onto sidewalks. They fell, worst of all, into the throats of our two poodles, at the same time, and for no reason at all. (Our vet was not pleased with us. Nor were the poodles.) They flew, they swung, they leapt from our fingers, gleefully, eager to leave.

We could not account for this at all. We had not lost weight. We had not moved to a frigid climate. We did not spend our days rubbing olive oil onto our hands or dipping them into melted butter. We were not old enough to be shrinking.