The Compound

by Aisling Rawle

last year a girl had been instructed to kiss a boy who had been interested in her for weeks. He was delighted, and thought it was the beginning of a romance between them. Everyone watching had gone crazy for it because we knew that the kiss was only so that the girl could earn a hair dryer.

What did it matter to wake up at the same time every morning and wear the same clothes and try to eat more protein but less sugar, when an earthquake or a tsunami or a bomb might end it all at any minute? Or maybe we would all continue to boil, slowly but surely, in the mess that we pretended was an acceptable place to live.