A Nice Catholic Wedding

Reading through the old sections of this blog I realized that the old (well its technically the younger me) legitimately tried to make this a fiction blog. At that point I had TWO blogs and the old Blog of Plenty is long gone. It maybe cached on a very lonely and boring Google server but that was supposed to be "funny" blog and this one the "serious" writing one. They both had readerships of zero and zero times two is still zero.

In addition to new sketches and writing prompts I put up short stories I wrote before the blogs. These were mostly from writing courses in college. And it shows. I am surprised I never shared this one. It is indeed very personal (Not in the impactful way. Just that it is based on real events) albeit a bit hyperbolic. Like with this blog and my Twitter I have a tendency to self diagnose through public written media. Here is what i said now please let me know what you think. While few have read this the fact no one does has helped ensure I stay out of trouble. Anyway, here it is.

Tromelin Island (Source)

A Nice Catholic Wedding

There are no brochures for Tromelin Island. I can’t just walk down to street to the travel agency and book a flight to Tromelin. There is an airstrip there but no one to check my bags or tell me how to put my seatbelt on correctly. To get to Tromelin I will have to go to Reunion first and talk to officials in the French military. Getting to Reunion is hard enough because it’s a drop of gravel, smaller than Rhode Island, east of Madagascar, but at least it has scheduled flights. Once there I will ask for permission to visit Tromelin, an island where the highest point is a seven-meter sand dune next to a French meteorological station. Except for sea turtles and giant albatrosses, no one lives on Tromelin. A pilot can drop me in or the French Navy would strap me to an Exocet and fire at a single square kilometer of sand. There are no phones on Tromelin.

This is something that is really great to do when you are bored: go to the CIA’s webpage and find their World Fact Book. They have every country, protectorate, colony, and spit of sand on the planet listed there. When your roommate is going into hour three of talking to his girlfriend, the fact that Baker Island is built on bird shit becomes interesting.

I have become Mr. Geography because there is no music that can drown out the sounds of two Catholic kids planning their wedding. They say ‘hun’ a lot. There is something so ‘plain as day’ about ‘hun’ but they just love it. Kevin says it with every sentence. Other kids use ‘like’ but Kevin uses ‘hun.’


“Oh c’mon, hun!”


“I don’t even know 75 people, hun.”


“It is going to be your special day too, hun.”


“I think June would be better, hun.”


“I just don’t see why we have to pay someone to tape it, hun.”


Kevin needs to try using that word at the beginning of a sentence. He keeps on going, an oral rubber stamp that just slams on ‘hun.’ So saccharine, like that donut on his desk. How long has he had that thing out?

The donut has been sitting on my desk all this time. I wonder if it is still any good? Grandma made them for me, with extra Smuckers strawberry jam and granulated sugar, calling it a Polish donut.

Nervous, I start to twirl a pen in between my finger. The ends click against my desk and Melanie asks, “What is that noise?”

“Nothing, hun.” I put the pen away

Melanie has a nasally scratchy voice that makes her sound like a nine-year old is inside her. Her voice squeaks over Kevin’s cell phone, but I don’t pick up any words; the hard click-clack of the pen drowns out the words. Just like how a dog hears, I only pick up intonations and not words. She did not like Kevin’s attempt to end the conversation. Her voice becomes frenetic and exasperated, coming through in pleading whines. Bad answer, Kevin, I think as I bring up another country profile. The only herd of reindeer on Earth not affected by Chernobyl lives on the Falklands.

I still can’t hear the conversation and I’m not really interested, but I know the gist. She calls in waves and whenever she gets a headache or struggles with an assignment, Kevin’s phone bleats. A bad day at the convenience store, a big presentation for a class, or another fight with her mom and there goes the night. Some nights, Kevin goes to the bathroom and talks to her in there, but this apartment is small and I can still hear the litany. The only British soil ever occupied by German forces in World War 2 is the island chain of Guernsey.


Does Kell hear me? He never mentioned any of my conversations with Melanie. He is pretty cool, but sometimes it would be nice to relate. He has had girlfriends before, and Melanie is being tough tonight. I don’t think I am going to get any homework done tonight. “I understand that you had a bad day, hun. I know that you are excited about the future, hun. So am I, but we talked at five and at seven already.” Melanie tells me she is tired and will go to bed soon. She needs this last conversation. “Ok, hun. I am sorry. What were we talking about before I interrupted? The wedding, right?” She starts to sound a little happier now. “What flowers? I don’t know hun. Just some pretty ones, like you.”


Her favorite flowers are sunflowers, Kevin. If you are going to marry this girl, if you are so in love with her then know her favorite flowers. “Why does this guy have a girlfriend”, I ask to myself, under my breath while scrolling to the ‘s’ section for South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands. After two failed attempts to cross Antarctica by foot, Ernest Shackleton died and is buried in Grytviken, South Georgia Island.

I know all this shit about Melanie that only Kevin needs to know. She loves the name Emily but that is going to have to wait after they are married. Her favorite flower is the sunflower and color is powder blue. She doesn’t get along with her sister because they were both competing for the one slot left in their mother’s broken heart. Her periods come in during the middle of the month—usually pretty heavy. Kevin sprinkles in a few ‘huns’ to calm her down.

Melanie gingerly jumps from mood to mood. One second she is raving about how Kevin ignores her and then she giggles coyly at the trailer for the latest Disney movie. One mention of that wedding and she is all juice boxes, church picnics, and little pink rug rats. Kevin realizes how content she feels and slouches in his chair, looking up at crack in the ceiling, arching his back and stretching.

It is already 11:17 and Melanie feels a lot better. “I am sure you are going to look great that day, hun,” I tell her as I launch a game of Minesweeper. She asks me about names and I agree with her that I always liked the name Emily. She asks me about the honeymoon and I say maybe Canada because neither of us can speak a foreign language. Then she asks me the weirdest thing yet and I don’t know how to answer. “What’s that, hun? Um that is kind off a weird question. I don’t know, hun. Kell is in the room.

“Damn straight, Kell is in the room,” I think to myself. Latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates saturate my brain. Only 46 people live on the Pictarin Islands. I hear my name, but I pretend that I am too engrossed with geography to really care. This conversation needs to end.

Kevin answers Melanie, “Well sure you’ve given me some, but what can I do? You haven’t decided to expose your beautiful body to me.”

There isn’t enough obscure geography to rectify that—not enough Cocos, Marshall, or Glorioso Islands to scour away the image of a naked Melanie. The image reminds me of white bread, puffy, plain and only good when toasted. Shivering, I bring up the website some French kid made for Tromelin Island. The website hasn’t been updated in three year, but it has pictures. Tromelin is a perfect tear drop in the Indian, alone and dotted with green bushy blemishes. Kevin chuckles and I imagine Melanie’s ticklish laughter filling her own apartment.

“No, a four hour one would not be cool, hun. That is a lot of blood in just one area.”

These are two Catholic kids from Northern Virginia; I can’t believe this conversation. Don’t they stop this kind of talk in church?

Kell can hear me, but I whisper, really softly, into my phone. I catch an image of Kell in the reflection of my monitor and he hovers at his computer, still on the islands page.

“What is that, hun? Now? I thought you were going to bed? It is a long drive.” I swivel around in the chair and look at Kell. His back is turned and hunched over the desk. I didn’t notice this earlier, but he has the hood up around his head. I wonder if he is cold and whether I should turn up the heat. Melanie asks whether she can come over again and I say, “Hold on, hun. Let me ask.”

This sweater is a product of the Northern Mariana Islands, but it still says “Made in the U.S.A on the tag.” The islanders did not make the hood thick enough because I hear Kevin perfectly. 90% of Nauru’s interior is devastated due to unchecked phosphate mining, but that is not so concerning as to let me ignore this conversation. I know he wants to ask if she can come over. If she can swing down from her own school just to spend the night. I look at the clock at the corner of the computer screen and it blinks 11:20. She’ll be her by 1am. Kevin does ask me if she can come over, struggling over his words and a couple of ‘um’s and ‘so’s. He says, “It will only be for the night and she’ll leave with me in the morning.” I don’t respond. Mayotte is the only island in the Comoroes archipelago that rejected independence from France.

Kell does have his hood on, but does he have any headphones on? I don’t think he heard me that time. Maybe he has some way to really tune everything out. Maybe that is why he gets so much work done. I twist my neck and try to scan his side, looking for a thin black cord running down to the computer tower. Melanie chimes in again and I tell her to keep waiting. She gives me an annoyed sigh. “Hey, Kell,” I ask again. “Um, so is it cool if Melanie comes over tonight? It will be only be for one night, this night, and she’ll leave when I go to my morning class. She won’t be here in the afternoon like last time.” Kell doesn’t answer. The sound of hard taps against the mouse fill up the air. I am sorry if he is mad because of Melanie’s last visit here. It wasn’t cool of her to skip her classes and drink all that juice which she though was mine. She should have gone home, but she needed my input on something for the wedding. I think it was the food and that is a tough decision.

No headphones and he is only six feet away. Kell ignores me and I can’t help but feel annoyed. I’m asking him and offering him my word. She will not be here in the morning. Melanie is only going to spend the night. Her voice comes through the phone again and she is getting stressed out. I hold the phone and tell her to calm down. “Just a bit more, hun. I’m asking.” Putting the phone down on the desk, I lick my lips and brew up some strength to ask Kell again. He stills has his hood up. “Kell, sorry if you are busy, but can Melanie come over tonight? Just for the night? Is that cool?” I hear something over the phone, Melanie’s voice telling me something. I quickly pick up the phone and hear what she has to say. I tell her to wait just a little longer, maybe pull onto the side of the road and wait or just drive slowly. I turn to Kell. “Is that cool? She is already kind-off on her way. She had a real bad day.”

The air outside is filled with water. Rain comes down in hypnotic sheets and headlights hover across the road. There is only offshore anchorage for Europa Island because of a surrounding coral reef. Bouvet Island features thick glaciers that rise from the sea. Jarvis and Navassa Island can have Navy SEALs airdropped onto them at any sign of foreign invasion. Even Kingman Reef, a hunk of natural architecture that pokes three feet above the Pacific, has more protection than me. Melanie has a car and the motivation. Kevin asks me if she can come over; I think this is the fourth time and I say, “Sure.” I catch him off guard, maybe he was expecting an argument, but Melanie is already ripping down a wet Interstate, driving uncharacteristically fast with her perfect Catholic wedding in mind. Kevin says thanks.

That went a lot easier than I thought. I tell Melanie the news and she is happy. She need to study for her sociology class and tells me she has a treat for me.

“Oh really?” I ask and wonder what it could be. Maybe that is why she was asking all those questions earlier. I ask what the treat is and she says cake. Cake samples for the wedding. She tells me how excited she is and how her mother sent her some newspaper clippings from back home about houses in Herndon Heights. She wants a nice wooden duplex, close to the town square and the church where we’ll be married. She has a list of potential ring bearers and wants me to help choose the entertainment.

“I need to graduate first, hun. So do you.” She whimpers and says that it never hurts to plan early. “Your right, hun. Two years isn’t bad at all. Sorry. Can’t wait to see you.” She giggles and pecks me a kiss over the phone. She says she’ll be there soon and says goodbye. I peck her goodbye also and flip the phone close. The phone is hot with latent heat making it feel uncomfortable and hostile.

I write down the coordinates to Tromelin.15.52 South by 54.25 East. I stuff the note into my wallet, in case I ever get the chance to go to Tromelin. Tromelin Island has no girlfriends or roommates. Tromelin Island isn’t time to think or read, but the cure for two Catholic kids planning their wedding. Melanie must be over the county line now. The room feels weird without the mention of ‘hun’ and ‘I love you.’ Kevin thanks me again and I close the Fact Book Page. I open a search engine and look up the French translation for “Ready, Aim, Fire!”