Some people spend their whole lives bored. They might not even know it, but they are. They go up in the morning, go to work, head home, eat dinner, go to bed. Some people never want to realize they wasted their life until it's already over.
I have my first wife to thank for this. It is my last chance to share my story; I am an old man, the cancer has taken its toll.
Miranda. None of you, no more. Miranda. I felt like it was dead, it was dead, it was dead, but I did not tell you because I felt it was my burden to bear. There is something so deliciously terrible about being the sole keeper of a secret - the tug-of-war between sharing what weighs on your soul and keeping it as your own dark companion forever.
I married Miranda in the spring of 1946. We were as young and as bright as new blossoms on the trees. I loved her so desperately because she was what I could never be: outgoing, vivacious, captivating ... to put on it, she was a star. Even at 18 Miranda could turn into a room and all eyes would turn to her. It was not so much that she was beautiful - of course she was beautiful - but there was something about her that seemed to radiate from within, like she had a fire burning in her belly. She was special. She was meant to be better than our shitty little railroad town. Miranda was like Jean Harlow had dropped out of the sky, landed in a cornfield, and then went about her business as though nothing extraordinary had happened at all.
Sometimes when I was lying in bed I would just stare at her. Sleeping, serene, and yet all the while smoldering with that flame. I brushed the hair from her face. I really wanted to give it all, even though Miranda truly deserved.
Instead I built a small but modest life. We had a nice, clean house near Main Street so you could shop for dresses whenever you wanted. I am a respectable job selling insurance policy at my father's office. I took her to nice dinners at the local diner and movies at the drive-in.
It took me a while to notice, but the flame in Miranda began to burn out of the inside out. I could see it in her face when she was the most glamorous woman at any of our cocktail party parties; she could outshine the rest without even trying. When you enter a room because of it as expected, as natural as breathing. Of course my coworkers wanted to fuck her. Of course their wives hated here. Of course it would have been petty gossip and dirty talk but none of it mattered because it was so goddamn easy.
We had just been married for five years when I was walking in our bedroom and they were sitting there, sitting at the edge of our bed with a half-empty martini in hand. I've left work early, hoping to surprise her as she'd look down in the dumps of late, only to find that she'd been drinking.
"God, Arthur," she said, her voice lubricated by cheap gin, "I'm so bored. I'm so godawfully bored. "
The martini glass is tipped dangerously in her hand. I made a slow move towards her, she scared her like a stray cat.
"Darling, let me have that."
Miranda jerked away even though I'd made no attempt to touch her. Gin sloshed over the edge and soaked into the carpet near her bare feet. Her toes were painted red, I remember - do not we remember the strangest things?
"I h-hate this place." Hiccups were setting in and this was a fresh shock; my wife was always cool, collected, never as much as a burp or a giggle at the dozens of cocktail parties. (Dozens, I realized then? Had it really been dozens of those office get-togethers I'd dragged her to? I thought at that moment yes, she was right, those had been terribly boring.)
"I hate it here, I dd-don't belong here, Arthur." Miranda caught the martini glass spilling and she justed it to take another deep sip. Swig, what the better word. "I'm like - a rose you planted in one of those states where it never gets warm. You want me to be beautiful here but I can not. I'm wilting. "
