The Simple Reality

Little Pains

Words left Agnetha's mouth just under her breath as she stood at the kitchen counter with a small tweezer she held poking at her skin. She used the light above her and whatever was left of daylight to see better for her glasses alone were not enough. She had been trying at this for five minutes now and no achievement of any kind to be made. Her patience was wearing and Björn could notice it just at one glance as he stepped into the room.

"What are you doing?" he wondered, passing through the kitchen after dropping off a small bag of mushrooms they had just picked together. They were on the same long walk together, but Agnetha made it inside much faster than he did, leaving him to be the one held up with the dogs who also shared the walk with them. The woman was displeased that it had started to pour before they got in, she had mud on her boots, the dogs were probably now soaked, and that hadn't been the end of her inconveniences that morning.

"Nothing. I just... I got this little splinter I'm trying to remove." Agnetha's words and tone revealed her deep concentration.

"A splinter?"

"Yes..." Her blonde head raised for a moment and he saw her eyes past the frames of her black glasses. "I was using the rail that I told you was getting so worn down... and you never fixed it." No, he didn't, he remembered, and what an awful way to remember it now. Her fussy and a splinter in her finger. "It got more wiggly and fell off so I moved it myself and now I have... a splinter." She waved a hand and a tweezer. "But I can't see a thing. I'm losing my mind now." Björn dropped the colored bag on the table top and moved around the sink where above them hovered a warm tungsten light.

"Let me see." They moved and sat together instead, knowing with both of their vision, this would take a minute. Her hand was open faced to him and he was beginning to check her pointer finger. He could hardly see anything even through his own glasses.

"Ow!" she voiced softly. "Careful."

"Sorry," he apologized, a smile drawing on him and then he looked at her with care. "Yeah. I see it."

"Do you?" He had quieted for a good two minutes until her mind her renewed her thoughts. "What do you think? Maybe I should make a mushroom soup with these. They'll be so good."

"It was what I was thinking. Perfect for this kind of weather. Wait," he interrupted, tugging her hand closer. "Don't move."

"I'm not moving, you're moving me."

"I-I think I got it, I—" and then he realized that didn't work. He licked his lip and sighed. "Okay I had it."

"I hope you didn't break it into a smaller piece. It was hard to pull out being as big as it was." Indeed that was what happened.

"I'll get it."

"How can you see, Björn? How can you see better than me? Your eyesight is not even better than mine!" He pulled her hand again naturally, and began taking off his glasses to set aside. The irony was he would see much better with them off if her finger was this up close. Each had a laugh that twisted their lips in the silence between.

Björn's phone rang, a loud sound coming from the pocket of his button up. She was quick to lean in and grab it, leaving the effort he made to beat her to be useless. Agnetha's smile was a beam and she answered the phone.

"Hello, you."

"Tell me, are you holding his phone captive again?" joked Benny, greeting her with his natural playful humor.

"No, he's been good about it," she laughed back.

"How are you, Agnetha?" Benny wondered as he looked outside the window of his studio, just to see the rain pour down and through the green trees. There was a gray cast, but somehow he wasn't irritated by the weather. He felt comfortable to stay in and work.