Believing they would make him happy, a man bought himself a new pair of pants. Subsequently, he was surprised to discover that, in fact, they really did make him happy! Considering just how rare it is for a commodity to fulfill the promise on the basis of which one has acquired it in the first place, the man decided it would only make sense for him to buy a second pair of the pants in the other color in which they had been produced, thereby doubling his happiness. Upon endeavoring to do so, however, he found that this other color was sold out in his size across all platforms. Now, the man was unhappy because he had been unable to buy another pair of the pants that had made him happy; and yet, when he thought about how the pants that had made him happy had, in this regard, ultimately made him unhappy, he realized he was actually happy he hadn’t been able to buy another pair. But as for whether this meant the man was happy or unhappy overall, even he could not say for certain.

Eli S. Evans

has work published in several now or possibly soon-to-be defunct literary magazines, as well as some with a more promising future. His small book of small stories, Obscure & Irregular, was published in 2021 by Moon Rabbit Books & Ephemera, which recently released his larger book of mostly even smaller stories, Various Stories About Specific Individuals in Particular Situations (August 2023).

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ Man on an Airplane, microfiction in Maudlin House (6 September 2023)

⚡ Two Friends, prose poem in MacQueen’s Quinterly (Issue 13, May 2022)

⚡ The Accidental Generalissimo, microfiction in Maudlin House (2 February 2022)