If they don't have kids maybe he comes home from work and she's made interesting cocktails and they have inventive and playful sex.
One day they smash all the dishes so they can dress up in their wedding clothes and go shopping for more.
Over dinner he tells her about his day and she listens and they dress in costumes to act out the stupid people until he doesn't feel the pain anymore.
They sneak homemade popcorn into the local multiplex and make fun of the movies they're better than.
In the morning his ironed clothes are laid out in witty positions and he goes to work again, smiling at his luck.
During the day she works somewhere collecting stories for his amusement. Or maybe she stays home and cleans the windows drawing secret messages in her breath for him.
Weekends an adventurous trip or maybe a dutiful one made fun by creative sidelines and thrilling insights.
They don't talk about ideas much, but they push boundaries and explore inner worlds. He thinks about writing it down or painting, which will please her because she loves how artistic he is.
I should never have given them kids. Okay: the kids magically fade when children are no longer fun to play with.
And then they grow old together and he reads her all the love letters he ever meant to write her and she likes that a lot and forgets the rest.
They die entwined and everybody sighs with completion.
Or one day he comes home and the words she is saying are actually important and they aren't about him but he has to pay attention. It's so demanding. She wants to go back to school and maybe she blames him for pulling her out of what she said was a waste of time. One day he comes home and there's no dinner and she's crying and she throws a dish at his head, several dishes and they don't go shopping afterwards. One day he comes home and she says I have a life too, you know. But he didn't know, because she never told him, because he never wanted to know. And he says let's go scream at the trains? Let's capture a leopard, let's tap dance, let's listen to the Shins? And she says Oh you assholes. This stuff works for you because you are simple; I need more than that. And then what sucks is that she doesn't evaporate, because she was real. Now they have that pain to deal with, and no amount of soundtrack can make it better.
for clarity: Manic Pixie Dream Girls
Your grown up manic pixie dream girls are still way too nice.
One day he comes home and the bunny's boiling in a pot on the stove.
One day he comes home and she's waiting in the kitchen with a meat cleaver.
Posted by: mig | April 23, 2010 at 12:02 PM