By Jacob Butlett

I’m having an affair with Zeeb, my garden gnome. One moment I was having a long, boring conversation about God knows what with Gordo, my husband, then the next, while I was alone cleaning the kitchen, wondering what compelled me to marry Gordo last year, I looked up from my mop bucket. Zeeb stood on the counter in emerald overalls and a pointy red cap. 

“You’re beautiful, Ella,” he said in the warmest voice I’d ever heard. 

I screamed in terror. Passed out. When I came to, I was in bed. What the hell happened? I wondered. Then I looked behind me and on Gordo’s half of the bed stood Zeeb, barely two feet tall. I was about to scream again until Zeeb bent down to brush a coil of hair out of my face. His sapphire eyes sparkled in morning light streaming through the window. While Gordo was at work, Zeeb convinced me he wasn’t dangerous. We still don’t know how he came to life three months ago. Doesn’t matter anyhow. In bed that morning, Zeeb didn’t talk about himself much. Just listened to me talk about my life, never interrupting me. Never judging me. 

When I turned eighteen, I moved to Florida for college. In my senior year, I met Gordo. We dated for only eight months before we tied the knot. We had sex a lot when we were dating, leaving little time for conversations. Had we spent more time talking about ourselves, I don’t think we would’ve gotten married. In college, Gordo used to be interesting, spending most of his free time weightlifting and swimming laps at the YMCA. Now he spends most of his time watching the weather channel. Do you love me? I asked him one day, while he was watching a man in a boxy gray suit ramble on about expected downpours. Gordo glanced at me with a smile as if that would be enough to reassure me that our marriage would last forever. We both knew better.

I’ve kept Zeeb a secret from Gordo all this time. Keeping the secret has been easy since Gordo doesn’t talk much to me anymore. As a homemaker, I thought I’d spend the rest of my days cleaning our house and waiting to conceive a child. Gordo and I keep the house clean anyway. We haven’t had sex in almost a year. Zeeb says I should divorce Gordo so that we can spend the rest of our lives together. But I’m afraid what others might think if I leave Gordo for Zeeb.

I take Zeeb on dates every week. We visit local parks and go to the town’s only movie theater. Out of fear of being judged or questioned, I sneak him into museums and libraries, hiding him in a beach bag Gordo bought me for our first wedding anniversary. Zeeb gladly does anything I say, so he doesn’t mind the bag.

Sex with Zeeb is lackluster, but I don’t care. I need intimacy. Zeeb’s hard plastic body is warm whenever I hold him or whenever he holds me while I cry about my disgrace of a marriage. 

Is there a way I can save my marriage? I asked on a whim last week. The sun filtered through the bedroom window. While my clothes lay on the floor, Zeeb lay on top of me. His tiny hands stroked my sweaty skin. I waited for an answer, but he didn’t need to reply. My marriage has run its course.

Last night, something happened. 

I was smoking a cigarette on the front porch while the setting sun bled scarlet light across tawny clouds. Zeeb sat next to me as we watched the neighborhood darken into twilight. A breeze passed by like a ghostly murmur. Then the air went silent. I thought about marrying Zeeb but laughed. Out of the question. Ludicrous. Every month for the last three months, Zeeb has asked me for my hand in marriage, and each time I say, Maybe one day…

While stars freckled the indigo sky last night, I gazed at the sun. A question rose to the top of my brain like a hoisted anchor: How long will this last?

The question puzzled me. I thought, of course I’ll leave Gordo. Someday. But when? 

I turned to Zeeb, his plastic face like stone in the harsh summer light. I touched his wrist. No pulse.

“Are you hollow?” I asked. “If I break you, would nothing pour out? “

“You can fill me with anything,” he said. “If it makes you happy, you can break me.”

You’re a walking, talking shell, aren’t you?

Zeeb had no knowledge of his existence before he came to life.

Look at the sun until I tell you to stop, I told him.

“It is lovely tonight,” he said. “But not as lovely as you, Ella.”

His blissfully ignorant smile made me want to weep with envy.

When I heard Gordo pull into the driveway on his return from work, I stood up, surprised to find tears on my face. I tamped down my cigarette just as Gordo stepped out of his car. I walked over to him. Before he could walk around me, not bothering to say hello, I wrapped my arms around him for dear life, as if we were drowning in sunlight and shadows. I pressed my left ear against his chest, full of rapid heartbeats.

How long can this last? I whispered. One more week? One more month? We don’t really know each other. It’s been over for a long, long time.

As he nodded somberly, I forced back sobs.

He wrapped his arms around me. Our first embrace in months.

Meanwhile, Zeeb watched the sun, as I had commanded him to do. He, too, was silent. Transfixed on the beauty of day’s dying light.

*   *   *

Jacob Butlett is the Head Poetry Editor at Blue Earth Review. Jacob’s creative works have been published in many journals, including Colorado Review, The Hollins Critic, Crab Orchard Review, and Lunch Ticket. Jacob received an Honorable Mention for the Academy of American Poets Prize (Graduate Prize) at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale (SIUC), sponsored by the Academy of American Poets. Aldrich Press published Jacob’s debut book of poems, Stars Burning Night’s Quiet Rhapsody.