An Action Movie’s Romantic Lead Questions The Couple’s Future Together
I don’t think we have much in common, other than our ability to look attractive while sweaty.
Boy, talk about a crazy week! For me being a mere associate professor and you being a heartbroken twenty-six year-old doctoral student, we sure killed a lot of hyper-intelligent apes in the National Air and Space Museum.
We’ve been through a lot and, certainly, we have some compatibility, but, really, if you condense the last week down, we only had a good ninety or so minutes of repartee. I don’t think we have much in common other than our freshly deceased partners, our desire to save humanity, and our ability to look attractive while sweaty. For an adventure-junkie with no responsibilities to children inhibiting your traveling, spelunking, or diving sword-first into a melee of heat-packing primates, you’re not going to find what you’re looking for with me, as — now that the dust and chimp skulls have settled — I’ll be returning to my research, my cardigans, and my Honda Civic.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to stress “some” like that. I’m not trying to minimize opening up to you about my strained relationship with my father, the electric kiss we shared in the rain, or the night we spent bivouacked in Arlington National Cemetery cooking our rations over Kennedy’s Eternal Flame. I didn’t mean for this to be so direct, but I’ve been, admittedly, a little scatterbrained in the six days since my wife was kidnapped and murdered by Dr. Jingles’ henchmonkeys (thus the unresolved dad stuff surfacing, our museum porking, and my devil-may-care attitude towards soiling historical upholstery).
I know you told me, probably, six times now, but I still don’t remember your dead boyfriend’s name (I want to say “Rango’?) Come on, cheer up; remember how we saved the world? It was not even two hours ago when you threw the rune crystals into the nexus point, sealing it just before Dr. Jingles’ billion primate troop could charge through and pillage our dimension, remaking our universe in their own hairy image.
I know I had promised you a week at the beach house, just us. It’s not really my beach house, though. It belongs to my dead wife’s parents, and they would be livid over the actuality of my “grief boinking.” Ditto with you being my “date” to her funeral. And I’m not just saying that to get out of going with you to Gonzo’s memorial, but, yeah, obviously, I’m not going to that.
Come on, you’re twenty-six, almost a PhD in malignant primate behavioral sciences, back-to-back appearances and Scientific American’s annual “Hot List,” and have already achieved the title of “Humanity’s Savior.” You’re a wunderkind! You don’t need me, my soy allergy, and my uptight rules about upholstery cleanliness.
Me? I guess I’ll be okay. The silver lining to a brush with extinction is that there will gobs more grant money fueling my work through Georgetown University’s research division on dimension jumping primates. I have a feeling my sixth book will sell more than forty copies my first five sold. I only wish my dad was alive now so I could rub it in his face.
I hope you find what you are looking for out there. If you don’t, well, maybe we’ll try this again if we get Apes of Wrath 2.
