Trifecta: It's Sad

It’s sad.

I never want to be like them.

It’s none of my business.

But I want to shake each and every one of them anyway.

Surrounding us, table upon table, are couples not much older than us sitting directly across from each other on a Sunday evening. Women silently eat looking a few inches over their husbands’ left shoulder at nothing in particular. Men mutely guide pizza to their mouths gazing not at their wives but mindlessly towards whatever game is playing on the bar's television.

No words are exchanged except, “Check please.”

Not that I hear.

Or intimate smiles.

Or angry eyes even.

Not that I see.

I speak though no one hears me. 

“Don’t you notice it too? Do you even care? Is this what it becomes?”

As if I my thoughts can somehow infect them with the ardor, passion, and intensity they once had. For each other. For something. For anything it seems. 

I turn away from the room when I feel my attention being pulled back.

He smiles.

“But I want to shake each one of them.”

“It’s none of our business.”

“I won’t let that happen.”

“I know.”

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33-333 words for the third definition of:
INFECT 3a : contaminate, corrupt <the inflated writing that infects such stories>  

  b : to work upon or seize upon so as to induce sympathy, belief, or support <trying to infect their salespeople with their enthusiasm>