The other day, while whiling away an hour or so in my brain, I came across the notion that it might be possible the most amicable relationships consist of two humans (or homunculi) who detest their existence outside of the relationship itself. For instance, at one or several points in his existence, Shambal Brambel earned his keep lying for ten hours nine and a third days a lunar week in a septic drain field. He came across this profession after being diagnosed with a rare talent for absorbing filth and trasforming it into nourishment. The science of this epoch was paying him to be studied. He did bring a book at the beginning of every shift, though reading material usually spent most of its time lounging in various bubbling excrement pools peppering his field on any given day. You see, Shambal was even more dyslexic then than his corpse is during the present epoch.
I have drifted from the original subject and I apologize.
Shambal Brambel lay in septic drain fields. That was his job. I used to walk past him atop tributaries of cracks on sidewalks bordering each side of the fields. The stench seared the hairs from the insides of my nostrils. I remember each membrane of my face swelling from the caustic air. Shambal was miserable. I could feel it through the pallor.
Then he went home to his Karla. Each day a revelation took place! She was a goddess awaiting him on the doorstep, having endured her own dastardly hours scrubbing drool, mucus and semen from the floors of the theatre. Sometimes Shambal, seeing her scabbed hands, felt even a little lucky. At least he was only tortured by endless daydreaming in the slime. Physical labor was not part of his employment contract.
The immense contrast with their oppressive other lives brought them closer. Happiness enveloped them when they met, as if for the first time, every evening. They made ugly love like grunting warthogs, playing out scenes that would make even those with the strongest of stomachs turn quickly away.
Do happy couples thrive because of misery elsewhere in their lives? Though Shambal and Karla truly gained from their situation, I’d be hard pressed to get up from this chair and conduct a study to verify it as a more general truth or not. I did stumble across the idea whilst taking a stroll in my mind the other day…
