Dave comes home again

Dave comes home again, for this is what he does. Dave goes out in the morning and he comes home at night, always the same, unwavering. I think about lighting a fire in a wastebasket just to watch him spring up to extinguish it, or collapsing onto the floor so he could rush right to my side. But he wouldn't. I mean, he'd put out the fire, if a fire was lit, but I'd never hear the end of that, and if I lay down on the floor, he'd know that I was faking. He'd check to see my chest fail to rise before he'd rush right to my side. But then maybe I'm being unfair. He'd only check because he suspects I'm prone to such displays, and in a true emergency he'd be discerning enough to act. Dave "has my back", I suppose, this defined by the very fact he so perpetually comes back home again. I'm lucky, I know I am, and I love him, but lately that love has been like loving the trunk of a tree, or the back of an elephant. The back of an elephant that keeps coming home again, and sitting down to dinner, puttering around annoyingly in the evening, and then asking, "You coming to bed?"