Tonguing Mortar
by Samuel Asher
I fall immediately in love with the house. I quit my job at the StuffMart and spend all my time caressing her bricks, and tonguing her mortar. The neighbors don't complain; this neighborhood's full of such lascivious dwellings that I see every owner caressing mantels, and rubbing up against skirting boards as often as they catch me singing love songs to my gate posts. I'm sitting inside her living room watching the news when I learn about the weather.
The wickedest storm to hit our shores in a hundred years, the radio says, so powerful the governor has ordered mandatory evacuation.
I'm the first on the phone, asking exactly how I transport my house. The woman on the line doesn't understand what I mean, keeps asking me if I'm talking about my wife, and I hang up since she's clearly being obtuse on purpose. The neighborhood association meets that evening and we discuss a plan, but there's nothing in the end we can do, but barricade our beautiful windows with shutters, and pile sandbags in doorways. I listen to my beloved weep as the storm tears her to shreds, stroking her floorboards as she's ripped away from me into the wind. It takes me a month to gather her parts, strewn across three counties, and even then I'm missing half of her body.
