Mr. Right

Mr. Right

“Is this the entrance? It can’t be,” Molly gazed at a ramp upward into a space with no
building or structure above it. “The GPS must be wrong, here is where are the cars are…”.
Joe had never flown before and the airport parking lots were a crude reminder of the many
things that were beyond his control. “I don’t know! Haven’t you done this before?”,
“Well, I haven’t been to the Houston airport car rental lot, no, each airport is
different” cried Molly, stretching energy to hold kindness and compassion for them both.
Joe pulled a lock of curly blonde hair out of his face, dampened with sweat by the Texas
heat. He smoldered quietly mumbling under his breath, pink-cheeked, as his glasses began
to fog. “Wrong Way” read the sign at what seemed to be the most obvious entrance. Molly
pulled over the shark tracks. “Turn around!” a mustached man in an orange vest cried in a
barely comprehendible accent.
When Molly pulled up to the Thrifty car counter, the employee gazed in
disinterested confusion as Molly stifled a growing seed of panic. “No, no, no, this is
departures, not returns, you go upstairs. Didn’t you see the ramp? The GPS should take you
there. We’ll have to get someone to let you back out” the employee stated flatly, as the
projection of denseness slowly shifted back onto Molly. All her avoidance and panic and
attempts to manage Joe’s anxiety surely led her to make all the decisions that exasperated
it.
A crowded shuttle bus ride from the airport parking center for rental cars to Delta
and the distance between the reality Molly wanted and who Joe really was were in mutual
reception. Joe shouted at others, impatient, angry, thrashing against the inescapable mundane suffering of air travel. Waiting, and exploding over and over again at passenger or employee Joe hoped each explosion would rearrange the landscape into one where he could only get what he wanted more quickly, in greater quantity, and higher frequency, and then he would be satisfied.

Molly coddled and quieted, explaining and defending and being the receiver of an
unreasonable rage. Back in the Dallas hotel room Joe and Molly sat waiting for the
rescheduled flight they inevitably missed the original version of. A blue plastic vase with
yellow and pink plastic flowers reflected the light in the most beautiful way, like God was
shining through. Then they resumed following each other from the balcony to the
bedroom, apologizing, defending, ruminating, and reneging. Joe tossed a cigarette butt off
the cement balcony and a little raccoon scrambled out from the shadows to nibble at it,
like minnows would a piece of bread.
Molly could relate. Trying to eat the dead ends of something that had no nutrient to
being with. Staring at the black rings of eyeliner smudged from wings into circles, funny
enough, Molly sort of resembled the raccoon too. She smiled, noticing her chipped tooth.
And in the morning, she would go to the dentist’s office. In seven months time, when the
tooth had healed, she would finally realize she wasn’t with Mr. Right.

By Autumn Maddox

Keyboard Catharsis: Writing Workshop by Jimmy Doom via in Phoenix

Hosted by Passenger Recovery
Sunday, May 25th, 2025

Prompts: Houston Dentist Office Raccoon Vase