She is struggling to remember where she went wrong. She thought things were progressing smoothly with Mark. How did things get so screwed up?
"I love the simple life where choices are effortless," she announced to Mark.
Mark said, "No simple life is without complicated choses. Where to live, where to go to school, what to read, what to plant in the garden, even, who to buy the seeds from for the garden. The choosing never stops."
"I think living the simple life means keeping an open mind when making choices. And there is no one who's more open minded than me," she said.
Mark said, "Biases are funny things. Some use circular logic. Thinking you have an open mind and no biases is itself a bias. If you thinking you are more open minded than others you are likely not."
"But really, I'm less biased than any of my friends," she insisted.
Mark said, "You've fallen for the Blind Spot Bias where the mind is fooling itself, then proudly congratulating itself on its cleverness."
"No I haven't. No I'm not. What the hell is Blind Spot Bias?" she said a bit too loudly.
The conversation devolved from there. She raised her voice in denial, losing control of her arms. Flaying like Charlie Chaplin directing traffic in Times Square, and slapped Mark's right cheek putting his fancy Cabernet in a slow-motion flight across the room, spilling its contents like an airplane fire retardant drop. The wine quenched any blaze that might have been smoldering in Tom and Mimi's new carpet.
The rest of the evening and the lonely trip home were a blur. Sitting on her bed, struggling to make sense of her actions, Sarah sees a text she'd not noticed on her phone.
"Coffee?" was from Mark only an hour ago.
Thumb typing like an 11-year-old after stealing a few swigs of her dad's beer, "yws" then rethinking that, pounding the backspace button frantically with her right thumb, then trying "maybr." No, that wouldn't do, "sooory, i didn't mean to hit you" No, that wouldn't do either. So she let her thumbs blurted out, "Love to have coffee." SEND Laying the phone on the bed, slumping with her hands cupping her eyes, thinking she was making a big mistake. She waited for what would happen next.
Chime! -- "Oh, NO!" she screamed into the empty room, launching her phone into a flight like Mark's wine with the same wild juggling gyrations that had gotten her into this mess.
She looks down and sees, "How about now?" Her heart sinks into her stomach.
This flash fiction essay should be filed under the “Is this anything?” category, one unpolished story for your consideration in roughly 500 words, give or take.