Unreal Estate

There is an ugly house for sale in a beautiful neighborhood. It's cold glass and gray stucco; it's over a million dollars and it's going to sell. A man and a woman will move in and arrange lots of uncomfortable furniture just so. A designer lamp will be placed in the large window overlooking the street.

They'll drink white wine in the afternoons and bicker in short bursts of frustration. She'll leave first. Not physically of course, but emotionally and deliberately. She'll find a small place in another neighborhood where she'll store her heart. He'll leave too, but he won't know he's left until the bulb burns out in the designer lamp and he feels no inclination to replace it.