The gears kept grinding with irritation, popping every so often with the sudden, harsher-than-intended retort.
A really bad insult sat waiting in her teeth, coiled like a cat wound tight for the pounce, primed, impatient, intent.
But the moment passed, pissed away into a low-grade depression. a defeat, a loneliness surrendered.
Both of them tired, they lay down on their picnic blanket and looked up. From there, a snapshot of them smiled back down on their exhausted, striving day.
Yearning branches reached for the sun, intertwining. Each leaf, a day in their marriage, carbon monoxide to oxygen, and beyond them, and above, the endless forgiving blue sky.