Alice

Illustration by Gary Taxali

On Valentine’s Day, Mark asked if he could take me for a drive, and when I asked him where we were going he said, “You’ll find out!”

So I get in the car, and he’s, like, “Put this on,” and he hands me a blindfold. And, obviously, at this point, I know something’s up, but I don’t want to say anything, because I don’t want to ruin the surprise!

So we’re driving and driving, and after a few hours I need to use the bathroom. So I’m, like, “Can we stop for a second?” And he’s, like, “Just go in this.” And he hands me a two-litre bottle. And that’s when I hear this loud foghorn. So I take off my blindfold, because enough is enough, and I see that we’re in the middle of an ocean, on some kind of trash barge. And I’m, like, “What is this?” And I see that Mark is crying. And he’s, like, “I got lost. I don’t know where we are. I’m so scared.” And I’m, like, “Where were you trying to drive us?” And he’s, like, “To the karaoke place where we met.” And I’m, like, “That’s only four blocks from our apartment. How could you get so lost?” And he’s, like, “Please don’t yell at me right now!” And so we get out and find the captain, but he barely speaks English. And he refuses to turn the ship around. So Mark takes out this diamond ring—which I guess he’d been planning on giving to me—and he says to him, “If we give this to you, will you take us to land?” And the captain grabs the ring, squints at it, and shakes his head. And so now we’re really fucked, because we have no way to communicate with our families and we’re essentially hostages on this ship. Eventually, we get to Guyana and find the U.S. Embassy. And when we see the American flag we both burst into tears, just out of sheer relief. And Mark’s, like, “Will you marry me?” And I say, “Yes!”

Kayla

Ted knows I love the outdoors. So one day we’re hiking up our favorite trail, when all of a sudden I hear “Surprise!” So I run up to the top of the mountain—and my entire family is there. My mom, my dad, my grandmother, all of my cousins. I’m so excited, I start jumping up and down and laughing! But then I realize, hey, wait a minute, my grandmother died six years ago. It turns out Ted paid to have her corpse reanimated. He got these former Soviet scientists to dig up her body, hook electrodes to her limbs, and shock her repeatedly, to make her lurch around like she’s alive.

So Ted gets down on one knee and my entire family starts to cry, in part because they’re moved, but mainly because they’re traumatized by the experience of seeing my grandmother’s body exhumed and made to move around through a series of shocks, which is just so unnatural and disturbing.

So Ted says, “Will you marry me?” And, before I can respond, the Soviet scientists come out from behind this rock, where they’ve been operating their shock device. And they’re, like, “We have done what you asked. Now you must pay us.” And it’s clear these guys have just been through hell. Their faces are pale and their eyes are bloodshot. I mean, they’ve had to rob a grave, drag a corpse up a mountain, and do unspeakable things to it. Just the worst kinds of violations. So Ted writes them a check and they start to walk down the trail. But, before they’re out of view, the short one spins around. And the tall one whispers to him in Russian, trying to shut him up or whatever, but the short one ignores him. And he says to Ted, in this thick Russian accent, “You make me shame. You make all of science shame. This day will haunt me always. ” And he starts to weep. And then Ted turns to me and says, “Will you marry me?” And I’m, like, “No.” After he was sentenced, I started dating Milo. He proposed on a camping trip. It was O.K.

Paula

It was our third anniversary, and I knew something was up, because Jack was acting really strange. Sure enough, at around six he’s, like, “How would you like to go to La Cucina?” And I’m, like, “Oh, my God,” because that’s the place where we had our first real date. So we get to the restaurant, and Jack orders this really expensive bottle of wine, which is so not like him. And while the waiter’s getting it he stands up and says, “I have an announcement to make. You’re all going to die.” And he takes out a gun. So everyone in the restaurant starts screaming. And Jack’s, like, “Hands in the fucking air! No fucking games!” And he starts going from table to table, just hitting people with the gun and taking their wallets and shouting that he’s going to kill them. Then he looks at me and yells, “Let’s go!”

So I follow him out to his car and we drive all the way to Mexico. He keeps snorting this blue powder to stay awake. And all I can think about is, when is he going to propose?

So eventually, after a few days of driving, he checks into a clinic and gets this procedure done that just totally changes his face. Like, I barely even recognize him anymore. And he tells me his new name is Paulo and that I need to call him Paulo or we’re dead. And we get jobs in a tinfoil factory. Four years pass, and one day he hands me this form and says, “We need to get married, because that will make us less suspicious in the eyes of the Mexican government.” And I start to cry, because it’s just how I always imagined it. ♦