Excerpt: Philosophy Cafe

He remained in his marriage, give or take a few years, because his wife Robyn, a doe eyed dreamy looking girl with a violent temper, married him when she’d gotten pregnant to their first child and despite the hippie ideals under which they’d met and had their ‘flower bonds’ consummated, you can’t raise a child in that sort of environment, so ideology be damned.

He didn’t grin at the permission baring sun today because he hated his wife, rather he knew he’d never really loved her and to a man with ‘integrity and courage’ this didn’t sit quite cleanly. His marriage always felt like one of those books you buy like 'Being and Nothingness' that was intended to impress the girl at the counter into sleeping with you but when you got home you just had this huge book taunting you because it knew and you knew you were never going to read it. Over the years the torment was exacerbated, friends noticing it on the shelf and asking you what you thought of section so-and-so; you dropping it on your foot that time and breaking your big toe. You try to chuck it, in the middle of the night so no one can see you tossing out 'Being and Nothingness', and a neighbour appears breathlessly on your doorstep at five in the am the next day, clutching your rescued copy of 'Being and Nothingness' from the top of the trash pile, claiming they knew YOU, of all people, would be devastated if YOU knew someone had accidently tossed it out.

Then, miraculously, one day, 'Being and Nothingness' just hops up, off the shelf, totters its way to the door and leaves your life forever, telling everyone in its path it’s not YOU; it just couldn’t take another day.