Possible Purposes of Plastic Buttons by Joanne Merriam
A woman is so preoccupied with her dying husband that an alien invasion fails to make much of an impression. Image generated with OpenAI I was at the hospital when the aliens landed. I'd made up my face that morning, but I'd eaten since then, and cried, and laid my cheek against his. I wiped my face naked with wet tissues and rubbed it with my bare hands, something soothing about the gesture despite everything. At the hospital, other patients often said they were bone-tired, and the metaphor of the phrase had lost all meaning for me in literalness, but I was. And nerve-tired and sinew-tired and lung-tired. Pericardium-tired. The muscles in my palms were sore where I'd squeezed his hands for hours, and my calves ached, and my lower back didn't bear thinking about. I hadn't slept since the morning before, and I thought I'd have a sandwich and then get some sleep on the cot in his room and maybe, if I were very lucky, I would die in my sleep and not have to watch...
