Oceans to Shores

“Apples to apples”, he said, “apples to oranges, whatever, it’s all fruit”. He shrugged as if to convey a sense of nonchalance, but I knew him. Of course he cared. He had shed a single tear the day it happened, but I’d never seen him cry before that, every single day for nine

months, while deployed at sea, he sent letters back home. Me and the boys always gave him a hard time. But he loved his wife–still does, even after returning home to another man sleeping in his wife's bed. It's the worst thing for a man to return and find out he'd been replaced.

“Who’s gonna tell him?” I asked. We all shrugged. No one wanted to break the bad news. Until someone did. “Listen man,” one spoke up, “you, are a simp. How can you let yourself be disrespected like that? Your wife slept around while you were deployed abroad! Divorce her already!”

“You pronounced ‘shrimp’ wrong, you big primate! I wasn’t away at sea, I come from the sea. The antenna and shell should have given it away. And we have an open marriage, since you’re so interested in our exoskeletal affairs.”

That was the beginning of the end. They tried to rekindle their love, but something between them had broken, cracked like a shell under a mallet. It was the puns that hurt most. The two drifted, the woman back to Akron, the shrimp to the Atlantic, where he was eaten by a herring.