Never Always Sometimes

by Adi Alsaid

Julia knew that there were moments in your life that meant something but passed by unnoticed, and she knew that this was not one of them.

Love traveled, it ran, it covered ground, eager to see more, do more. It was two people keeping pace with each other.

“Human beings are more or less formulas. Pun intended. We are not any one thing that is mathematically provable. We are more more or less than we are anything.” He massaged his mustache for a second. “We are more or less kind, or more or less not. More or less selfish, happy, wise, lonely. Just like things are rarely always true or never true, we aren’t ever exactly one thing or another. We are more or less. “It’s like that in our love lives, too. We like to think we’re formulas that even out exactly, that we are perfect matches with each other. But we’re not. We match up with lots of people, more or less.” Julia groaned. “That’s deep, but how is that helpful?” Marroney laughed, just as the bell rang, the sound muted by the tree house walls but still an insistent cue to leave. Julia stood up, brushed herself off as Marroney uncapped his pen. “The equation might not balance out, even if you and Dave are more or less a match.” He gave her a smile, then turned back to his papers. “Think about it.”

People did not speak highly enough of hugs. Yeah, they had a good reputation, but it didn’t really compare to how great they actually were. People should be walking around hugging each other all the time, amazed.

“No chocolate fountains in sight,” Dave said, snapping his fingers in an “aww-shucks” kind of way. “Good. I was thinking about it and I’m terrified of ants. Being covered in chocolate would attract ants, and that does not seem like a fun idea.” “How are you afraid of ants?” “I just can’t trust anything that has eyes too small to look into. I don’t know what they’re thinking. They could be plotting my demise and I’d have no idea.” “You’re adorable.” “Don’t patronize me, ants are a legitimate thing to be afraid of. All those legs. Have you seen an up-close picture of one? That’s the stuff of nightmares.”