Story - The Only Logical Conclusion

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As well as the two story prompts given to us in the writing workshop by Maya Anna Ozolina there was a third option presented that we had no time to complete but I made a few notes on it there and completed the story at home. The opening sentence is the prompt given for the story. I remember what she said. “If you wake up at night, don’t start to think.” Alas I am too cerebral for my own good. My new bride replied to my request to know what I should avoid cogitating over with ‘anything’. She added that I take things too literally, never seeing the world for how complicated it really is. My assumptions were never accurate. I saw things other than how they were. Regrettably the surest way to set my mind thinking things through rationally, reasonably, empirically and logically is to tell me not to think. I found myself lying awake all night wondering what not thinking might feel like. I was so engrossed in the progress of my nocturnal philosophical contemplations that I never realized that my wife, Sarah, had slipped from the honeymoon suite bed on just our second night together until I heard her in the main room beyond the bedroom door. I assumed she was ordering or receiving some kind of nightcap beverage from room service despite it being one thirty in the morning, but when curiosity got the better of me I peeped out through the keyhole. What I saw was astonishing. My ribbon and transparent nightie clad love was sitting at the dining table sharing wine with no less than Santa Claus and John Merrick, The Elephant Man. I caught only her warning to them to lower their voices for fear of waking me up before their tones hushed so I could capture little of their conversation. Though cautioned against thought, I had no way to stop my mind working immediately on the preposterous mystery before me. What were these strange men doing here in Ibiza with my wife in the 21st century during our honeymoon? Santa, a mythical fairy tale told to children, and hardly associated with a Summer seaside in the Mediterranean. As for Merrick, he had been real, but had he not died in the late reign of Queen Victoria? Apparently not. I was witness to an amazing miracle here. I wagered myself that my wife was some super-powered being, assigned to providing safe house sanctuary to beings who many assume either dead or never alive. She doubtless provides priest-hole style hiding places for such beings for their protection, a role and duty she could not share the secrets of even with me, probably due to a vow or oath to others in such a national security role. Oh, she is a true hero and I cannot bring myself to reveal my knowledge of her secret mission. Some cruel gossips had warned me that she was a strumpet of the red light districts before our engagement but now I see why she was truly out so frequently at such ungodly hours. Perhaps she also gave safe haven to superheroes, a Yeti, the surviving last of the Mohicans and others. Oh my wonderful Sarah. Now I love you twice as much as before. I can go to bed now, and sleep truly as my mind is satisfied by the conclusions drawn. Ah, their voices rise, I’ll listen in a little longer. “So it’s 5,000 pesetas for this kind of fetish Pedro. You dress as The Elephant Man, and Santa here gives me to you as a present and you can unwrap my clothes off me while he watches. You’d best hurry up though, as Sherlock Holmes and Mickey Mouse are due in at three.” My mind was overjoyed – It set its synapses whirring to fit this new information into my established theory. How exciting. It was going to be a very long night. To think Sarah was afraid I would miss the obvious conclusions before me. Ha! Arthur Chappell