#183 — Halves, Have-Nots, and Halfway There!

Demi, a half-way sort of girl, committed to nothing, never went "all in," halving it all. She did, if you want to know the half-truth (a whole lie), have it all, but she was split between her medium altruism and self-serving, self-having personality.

Which was an incomplete personality--about half--for which she only took half each half-day's medications.

On one half of a whole day, the morning-half, she met Semi-Sammy at the half-way house where she half-heartedly volunteered a half-day at a time.

For Semi-Sammy, it was almost (~50%) whole love at first sight. Once the half-life of his substances lowered in his bloodstream, he reciprocated her affections. Mostly. For he had an incomplete personality himself.

"You complete me," she'd tell him, meeting him halfway.

"And," he'd answer, "our sum's more than the mere addition of our parts."

He always complemented her by complimenting her, her own compliments only halfway complete, needing supplementation. For example, when she said, "I really love you," he would answer, "And I love you the rest of the way." When she said, "I think you're great," he would answer, "you make me the greatest."

As time went by, each bought in half--owning half-interest--of their home. Once Demi went all the way, instead of halfway, she became pregnant. They were both startled to learn she was carrying twins.

"We'll finally be the haves," said Semi-Sammy, "not have-nots."

It was a daunting concept for them to deal with a whole anything, much less twice of anything. But as Demi told Semi-Sammy, "if we buy two of everything--"

"--because we have to--" he interjected--

"I think the math will halve out."

"Whatcha mean?" Semi-Sammy asked.

"We're each half of us, but together we're one."

"And together we two will be half of our family of four," he added.

"And there'll be a whole baby for each of us," she continued.

"And since we're each only a half, and each baby's whole, each half of our family will be one-and-a-half," he said.

"So, one-and-a-half plus one-and-a-half makes three," she concluded.

"Whole personalities, right?" he clarified.

"Can we handle three?" she wondered.

Ultimately, Demi had triplets, so Semi-Sammy had to go. But that's only half the story!

__________

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

For Monday, July 1, Day 183 of the Story-a-Day Challenge

(Too late to change the subtitle wherein I called this for "June 31." My bad. "30 days have September, April, June, and November...")

This is the halfway point of 366 stories (optimistically), # 184 - 366 to come.

THE HALFWAY POINT OF THE YEAR!! WHO WOULDA THOUGHT? NOT ME, SOITENLY! I HALVE TO SAY, "I'M HALFWAY OPTIMISTIC" (BUT HALFWAY PESSIMISTIC). REGARDLESS, I'M DOUBLING DOWN.

(Should we go for the QUINQUENNIAL??)

366 WORDS (without A/N)

Title-accompaniment photo was AI-generated but the rest of the story is not!

---

There are currently three surviving Vocal writers still participating in the insane 2024 Story-a-Day Challenge and approaching only its halfway mark:

• L.C. Schäfer, challenge originator

• Rachel Deeming

• Gerard DiLeo (some other guy)

Read them. Support them. Pray for them. And remember, half a loaf of bread is better than none. PASS THE BUTTER!