by Rebecca Karpen
I find myself constantly looking at his fingers.
What do they taste like?
Can they break the same way that mine can? Can I trim his nails like I can trim my own,
would he protest, would he—
“Lisa, stop looking at that Ronald McDonald statue like that! It’s freaking me out!”
I turn my head to face her. “Caroline, I’m sorry that you have never felt the way that I do
about Ronald, but love is love and all I see when I hear you chastising me is hate.”
Caroline’s lip trembles. She’s so thin she seems to waver like a branch in the wind. Poor
Caroline, I think to myself. Built like a baby tree and loveless? I could never imagine what it
would be like to inhabit such a meager and pathetic existence.
“Lisa, can you stop insulting me out loud? Inner-monologues don’t exist in the world of
this story.”
“Dammit, Author!” I say in my head, so I guess by that logic, out loud. “How dare you
deprive me of the sanctum of my skull, the oasis of the encephalon!”
The sky grows black because I am effectively arguing with God and lightning flickers
through the clouds with menace.
Ronald smiles through it all. A beacon of innocence in a cruel and chaotic world, I
sometimes believe he is the only thing keeping me sane.
“Damn you, Author!” I raise my fist towards the sky. “How dare you subject my lover to
the sick and twisted universe you have concocted for us all. Caroline is a useless wretch, destined to perish in a dull and un-noteworthy manner, after living a life of similarly little renown or worth—”
“Y’know what Lisa, FUCK YOU! I am not going to exist in this dumb story so you can
use me as a punchline! I’m through with your bullcrap!” Caroline strides defiantly from the
Pickler Shopping Center proper towards her Buick.
A Smart car quickly reduces her straw-like frame to mush then speeds away to prove my
point exactly. I smile at the still-furious clouds because I am petty. They growl. “Fine, I guess
her death was a little more noteworthy than I gave her credit for.”
“Ronald,” I avert my gaze away from the syrupy remains of my late friend and back to
the only creature that has ever made me feel that love was within my capabilities as a person. His lips are red, like blood, like the contents of a 10 calorie packet of ketchup, like the past tense of what most people opt to do to a book but spelled differently. His hair screams in the same shade of scarlet, barking, beckoning for my touch. My body shudders as it takes all of him in. Every part of me begins hysterically aching as I see his skin sparkling, whipped cream-white as if crowning a McFlurry, reflecting the flickerings of electricity which tease through the dark clouds above us. His eyes are black, and although they convey nothing, composed wholly of darkness, echoing only darkness, they betray a sort of holy wisdom, a pentateuch of knowledge that remains far from the hands of mortal man, God’s words only trusted by the hard plastic body of Ronald McDonald.
Ronald says nothing. He doesn’t have to say anything. I know what he means. We are
finally alone. Finally free to be together, unabashed and wild as the clouds hover over us. I put my lips on his mouth. He refrains accommodating my touch. “Naughty boy,” I snicker as I pull on his immobile fire-engine mane. “Playing hard to get. Tsk tsk tsk, I worry we might need to make some sort of changes there—”
“Yo, can you chill?” comes an unfamiliar voice as the clouds disappear.
“Hmmm?” I muse in confusion, my head swerving in all directions, perplexed and
incensed as to who would be so brash as to interrupt the nascent stage of my lovemaking with the beloved icon of one of the world’s largest corporations.
“It’s me, Ronald. Like, don’t get me wrong, I’m into you. But like, you’re trying too hard
and like this whole thing is moving sort of too fast for me.”
I nearly fall off Ronald, whom I had at this point mounted fully clothed with no intention
of staying that way. Even as he speaks, his face doesn’t move.
Ronald continues to voice his reservations as I continue to eye him with confusion. “I
also recently lost a long-term partner, Caroline—”
“HOLD ON, WHAT!?” An enraged bark escapes the knot in my throat.
“Caroline, your friend, we are-were, sorry, still getting used to that-” a lone tear falls
down from his unblinking eye. “We were essentially common-law spouses at this point, but we were kind of trying to keep it under the radar because I didn’t want to convert to Judaism and you know the way her family is-OH MY GOD, I MISS YOU SO MUCH CAROLINE!” And
with that, a well of tears bursts forward from his unmoving orbs.
The flood pounces forth with such an almighty passion that it forces me off of him. I am
caught under the sorrow-borne ocean, trapped in the pain of my half-hearted lover. I realize that I will never be all that Caroline was to him. I will never possess her finger-prints or the fine curlicues of her lackluster bowl cut, the contours of her tree-like body. I could have diamonds for eyes and rubies for lips. I could have snow for skin and a celeste for a voice and it would never be enough for Ronald. I would never be enough for Ronald.
I look at him, he looks at me. As my nubile mortal eyes meet his saintlike gaze, we make
a decision. I glance at the sky. The clouds are silent and so are we. Then they pour down with a fervor unseen since Noah foolishly attempted to get mankind a second chance. Noah was a fool, believing that he could save us. We’re not worth saving. The Author, my God, clearly agrees. My tears fall like they are Niagaric. Ronald’s, like the Atlantic if the ocean was temporarily wholly upside-down and there was no gravity, racing to be reunited with the sand it used to shelter.
“Goodbye cruel world generated from a child named after Howard Stern’s ex-wife!” I
holler at the sky as the ocean of our mutual sorrows climbs up to my shoulders. “Ronald, I will never let you go!” I declare as I hold him to my crumbling non-tree like body. Caught up in each other’s gaze, I kiss him with a passion I have never held for another and he imagines I am Caroline.
We fall deeper and deeper into the darkness of the current. The last thing I see is him.
I’m okay with that.
Other Posts by Rebecca:
About “I’m Lovin’ It”:
Rebecca Karpen sent this to a myriad of publications before deciding to put it
on Satyr Central. Although she initially was hoping to achieve 50 rejections
before she surrendered her magnum opus to this site, which she is technically
an editor of, she got bored after 10 and wanted attention. Please still hire her
even though she wrote this piece. She babysits. Please still let her be around
your children. She has no money.
About Rebecca:
Rebecca Karpen is obsessed with the dog-walking metaphor at the end of the
pilot of “Dawson’s Creek.” She also writes sad songs and is currently working
on an academic article about Taylor Swift and populism while the world is
under quarantine. She hopes to still have a political career after publishing
this story and refrained for such reasons, but the world is in crisis right now
and no one is going to care about a story she wrote about Ronald McDonald
after this pandemic is over. If they do, they can fight her as long as they adopt
the proper parameters for social distancing if they choose to do so. She wants
you to wash your hands. Find her here [remotely]:
You can also find her on Spotify, Deezer, Youtube Music, Apple Music/
iTunes, Tidal, and Google Play.
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