She had been waiting for him for longer than she could remember. Aeons, eras, years, hours, you name it. He was somewhere on Earth, trying to make some poor bimbo who didn't deserve him, or just watching a ball game on the TV with a six-pack near at hand. Mr Couch Potato, SuperFlab, Non-action Man, the one that came with all the accessories, including the love handles and the smut-driven walnut-sized brain. World-class producer of snores and strewn dirty socks. How many titles like that could she imagine now ? Anger and loneliness fired her imagination, blotting out the paradox that his absence made her as miserable as his presence infuriated her a few aeons, eras, years, hours ago. She put the TV on. She switched channels randomly, hoping for a catastrophe worse than the one she was experiencing. There was none. Wars on a 21-inch screen just looked fake and staged. She could not tell real dead people from crash-test dummies. No comfort from the world suffering. She had no tears left anyway. She turned the sound off. She rang up people she knew, and listened to a continuous string of non sequiturs, the casual chit-chat about love trouble money trouble kid trouble work trouble house trouble family trouble that makes up the whole tapestry of middle-class distress. No help from that either. She stayed in the dark for a while, watching TV ghosts chase each other on the walls. She stayed there, unmoving, until it was cockroach hour.

The whole family crept out from the deepest shadows of her home, abysses of gloom she would never visit. The slender male, the broad female and their progeny climbed silently to the top of the couch, as it was their habit since he was gone. She smiled at them, beckoning them to come closer and share the few crumbs left from her dinner. Their conversation was somehow hard to follow, though she could now pick up a word of two. They had their own problems. Exterminators, scheduled next Friday. Relatives brutally squashed in the flat next door. Young ones with useless mutant wings. She took them gently in her hand, while they