vow ovenbird It was a beautiful day for a wedding—not too hot and slightly overcast so the guests wouldn’t have to squint into the sun. The ceremony was taking place on the pier. She admitted that the location wasn’t top notch. It was an industrial pier, cluttered with old outboard motors and rusty lobster cages. The dock was concrete and uninspiring, and there was a distressing amount of traffic coming and going, but, she thought to herself, the location wasn’t really important. The real trouble (and she probably should have considered this more seriously ahead of time) was that she was already married. That particular detail, now that she thought about it, was going to be the main logistical hurdle. She had time to ruminate on this while she practiced walking up the aisle in her bikini and stilettos. She wanted to make a showy entrance so she tied a red cape around her waist like an extravagant train, with the intention of letting it fall dramatically to the floor when she reached her groom, revealing her swimsuit model body clad in a sky blue two piece, in which she planned to say her vows. The other disconcerting detail was that the long, lithe, perfectly sculpted body was not her own. Maybe she borrowed it for the wedding? It seemed a disingenuous thing to do, but all brides want to look their best. And she was already wearing something blue, so maybe this was the “something borrowed”? She hoped she would be able to return it afterwards because, despite its superficial perfection, she was missing her own body, softer and more familiar as it was. And her fiance didn’t fall in love with a swimsuit model, and she wasn’t sure how he would feel about the “upgrade.” Back on the pier the guests were starting to arrive. She could hear them whispering, saying that the marriage seemed a little rushed, and what did the bride and groom really know about each other anyway? Which is when her husband showed up on a bicycle. Not the man she was about to marry, the one she was already married to. He wasn’t exactly pleased about the situation, for obvious reasons. He held out their marriage certificate and asked what was going to happen next. She insisted that everything would be the same, except she would be married to someone else. Other than that, nothing really needed to change. She figured that since they had a justice of the peace there already to perform the ceremony, maybe he could dissolve the original marriage right before signing off on the new one. She thought it would save everyone a lot of hassle if they could just do everything at once. The thing was (and she felt very strongly about this) she wasn’t getting any younger and she’d made a lot of excuses for not pursuing her own joy over the years. She was done with that. She was planning to kick over whatever hurdles she encountered. Being married already wasn’t going to stop her from getting married that very day on the pier. She went off to find the officiant, her red cape flying out behind her, its colour the exact opposite of surrender. 260526 what's it to you? who go blather from