Photo by Anton Ahlberg on Unsplash
by Pamela Painter
It is time to tell my husband that I am leaving him. Perched beside him on our sagging couch, I describe the molting of a lobster, how lobsters bend double and then back out of their shell.
He finally peers at me in disbelief, but he doesn’t lower the volume of the Patriots’ game. I suggest that he needs to give up five minutes of his precious Sports TV and go to YouTube to witness the astonishing process of a lobster molting.
I say lobsters could be immortal because they just keep molting as they grow larger, but what happens is that their shells get too large and they don’t have the energy to keep on molting, to keep on shivering, shucking out of their larger and heavier shell. My shoulders are lighter already as I tell my husband I’m backing out and leaving while I still can.
Pamela Painter is the award-winning author of five story collections. Her stories appear in numerous journals and anthologies, have been included in Best Microfiction, Best Short Fictions, and have received four Pushcart Prizes.
