mystic_savage

D. noticed her on a Wednesday.  He knew specifically that it was Wednesday, because Wednesday was the day that Josh, his metrosexual roommate, reserved for manicures and nose hair trimming.  She came in the door with Josh, and at first she'd seemed like nothing special.  Another tool in a corporate box, that's what he'd thought initially.  When she'd been in the same room, he'd been unable to think of anything to say.  He was known for his dry sense of humor, but had been unable to suck up to her.  That was before he'd seen her plugged in of course, without all the protective packaging .  It was then he'd fallen in love with her.

She was the kind of appliance his manufacturer had written warnings about.  Oh, he'd known other humidifiers before, the cheap, forced air types that expelled noisy bubbling steam all night and used all the energy in the house.  But she was different.  The cool fog around her seemed to come from nowhere but the quiet space within her.  If he watched her long enough he could almost imagine that she vibrated at another frequency, some ultrasonic level that no one else could hear.  

But from the beginning, he'd known it was doomed to fail.  They never seemed to be plugged in at the same time.  She was nice enough, but Josh always ran the show and he seemed to want more from her than D. could ever hope to get.  The roommate relationship suffered.  Josh had no time for D. anymore, they never just hung out in the living room and watched football and sucked down pints together.  Now, when football was on, D. felt shoved into a corner and ignored.  Of course, if he'd never met the Airhead, it might have worked out eventually (he sometimes thought, in his more morose moods).

Truth be told, the Airhead had a lot more in common with D.  They had a lot of similar interests, cleaning up the environment, for example, and fighting mold.  Where the humidifier had subtlety, the Airhead had, well, noise, but she was very friendly and always up for whatever he was up for.  And if their relationship was occasionally competitive, if she was totally predictable and nothing special, well, at least she was there, he told himself.  At least he wasn't lonely.

And for now, that had to be enough.