They met in Paris, where all good love-stories begin. The only difference was they hadn't met in Paris, France; they met in Paris, Virginia. They were both in college, and they both had great ideas in their head that they couldn't wait to share. They were the type of people who wanted to change the world--but they weren't exactly sure how. So a friend-of-a-friend set them up, and they decided on their second date that they were absolutely in love. He was fascinated by her, because she was like a bird: strong yet delicate, mysterious and with the enormous potential of being able to fly over the horizon. She loved him because he had a way with words: they fell out of his mouth like tiny silver shavings, as if someone had taken a razor to the moon and then he came along and gobbled them up.

Two months later they eloped in a quaint Maine courthouse, and escaped to a small beach-house where they spent three months honey-mooning. It was their chance to plan how they'd change the world, but they spent most of those three months just thinking of ideas. Jack tried to write a book, because he dreamed of being a writer; she floated in the ocean, because she dreamed of being a mermaid.

After three sultry months of soaking up the salty ocean and brushing sand off their skin, they decided to finally go out and change the world. They reasoned they'd need a house, so they bought one in a suburb and settled in. "Just for a little while!" They told each other.

Five years later, and they had melted into the floorboards of that house. Their dream of changing the world had decided that its place was just that: being a dream. They loathed each other as much as they loved each other, because they both blamed each other for everything that never happened. Jack blamed her for letting her bird go, and she blamed him for caging it up in the first place.

As most marriages do, they managed just enough to keep the knot tied, despite the incessant fraying. It was almost routine: they'd wake up and eat in silence; he'd go to work and she stayed home; he'd come home tired and she'd be tired, too; they'd both complain; they'd find something to fight over; and then they'd go to sleep, their bodies dangling on opposite edges of the mattress, letting the space between them go cold.