New Pants

by Steve Gergley

All of my old pants disintegrated, so I ordered some new pairs online. But my new pants didn’t arrive in time for work on Monday, so I wore a Terry cloth bath towel around my waist instead. This was a terrible idea. My coworkers mocked me mercilessly. My undercarriage chafed a large amount. My towel became spattered with paint multiple hours before we stopped for lunch. Despite all this, my towel-skirt did not fall down the whole day. This was a relief. When I got home, my wife and her car were missing. So were her clothes and her computer and her belongings from our bedroom. But I wasn’t worried. She does this multiple times a week and then returns in a jaunty mood. So I dropped my towel to the floor and sat in a chair on the back deck. I ate cold pasta with my hands and watched the jittery birds swoop by. It was a nice day. The sun danced a jig upon the creamy skin of my thighs.

Steve Gergley is the author of The Great Atlantic Highway & Other Stories (Malarkey Books 2024), There Are Some Floors Missing (Bullshit Lit 2024), Skyscraper (West Vine Press 2023), and A Quick Primer on Wallowing in Despair (Leftover Books 2022). His short fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Wigleaf, X-R-A-Y, Maudlin House, Always Crashing, and others. He tweets @GergleySteve. His fiction can be found at stevegergleyauthor.wordpress.com. In addition to his own writing, he is also the editor of scaffold literary magazine.