Mr. Fox

by Helen Oyeyemi

She doesn’t complain about anything I do; she is physically unable to. That’s because I fixed her early. I told her in heartfelt tones that one of the reasons I love her is because she never complains. So now of course she doesn’t dare complain.

occurred to me that I was unhappy. And it didn’t feel so very terrible. No urgency, nothing. I could slip out of my life on a slow wave like this—it didn’t matter. I don’t have to be happy. All I have to do is hold on to something and wait.

Her heart was heavy because it was open, and so things filled it, and so things rushed out of it, but still the heart kept beating, tough and frighteningly powerful and meaning to shrug off the rest of her and continue on its own.

The girl tried, several times, to give her love away, but her love would not stay with the person she gave it to and snuck back to her heart without a sound.

The girl decided that she had to hide her heart somewhere until she was big enough to keep hold of its weight.

I vowed that I wouldn’t have a man unless he was someone I could really be together with, someone capable of being my better self, superior and yet familiar, a man whose thoughts, impressions, and feelings I could inhabit without a glimmer of effort, returning to myself without any kind of wrench.

Solitary people, these book lovers. I think it’s swell that there are people you don’t have to worry about when you don’t see them for a long time, you don’t have to wonder what they do, how they’re getting along with themselves. You just know that they’re all right, and probably doing something they like.

some people make you want to see them smiling.

Whenever she spoke, he understood. Her voice had all sorts of sounds in it—the flow of water against rock, an acorn shaken in its shell, a bird asking for morning. Her voice wasn’t loud, but he heard it throughout his body.

Then he stood, nudged her aside, chose more words. Stay with you. I with you. Please.