“That’s the girl I’m going to marry,” he said, pointing down the hall. His friends dared him to approach, ask her simply for a date.

“You’re cute, but I already have a dog,” said she, in reply to his awkward entreaty.

Right he was. The two were married forty-seven years.

Anita Reynolds is a writer and artist, wife and mom in the rural reaches of Tennessee. Her work is inspired by the strangeness of life, from the mundane to the magical.