Southern Legitimacy Statement: I am born and raised in the Northeast of the United States. In fact, I dwell so Eastward that I have spent time in England and will be pursing my doctorate there this autumn after my MFA at UNH. My very short flash fiction piece concerns my relationship with a British girl who I met in Lancaster, UK as an exchange student in 2022. In terms of “the south,” I travelled through it years ago (high school, I believe) to Florida. The imagery of the landscape sticks with me, as well the experience.
An Unflattering Envelope
Now you finally remembered to catch me up about your sister’s perfect union in Ahwatukee, Arizona. You were agape by its tasteless charade. Though, not nearly as much as I was absorbing it, oppositely sober.
You said your new brother-in-law ascended the aisle, in his stucco arid backyard, to John Williams’ goosestepping “Imperial March.” You told me your sister, in that fucking shitty second-hand dress she thrifted in Cornwall, accepted his ordained ring. Eight-months, fashioned vows. Afterwards, he swung from without the polyester lining of his nightmare-black sports coat a lightsaber, and flashed it to the crowd’s amusement like it was Order 66, or maybe August ‘69, again.
Except: you insisted that he’s in his mid-thirties, and that your sister met him on some gaming platform. Not on the international dating app you originally lied about months beforehand. You confessed how your older sister was pissed1, so your wedded-wild-one had been unofficially tasked the evening’s entirety defending your family’s honour, back in England.
But, at the celebration’s end, and what I do recall most strikingly, is how you laughed with an aside at the print-out photos the Arizona family sent of the wedding day, in a bowtied envelope, from America.
_________
1pissed
chiefly: BRITISH
drunk; wasted; boozed; intoxicated; under the influence of alcohol.
