Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl

by Andrea Lawlor

Diane sighed, an angry exasperated sigh Paul hadn’t heard before. Now he’d done it. Rewind! Rewind! He stared at her. He held his breath. “I just feel like we don’t collaborate well,” said Diane. “Why, because I’m not a vegan? I’m not political enough for you? You know why I can’t get arrested.” “I know,” said Diane. “Okay, so that’s what this is about?” “You want to be everything, all the time,” Diane said. Her voice caught. “I just want a girlfriend. I’m afraid you’re going to get bored of being a girl, and then where will I be?” “I love being a girl,” said Paul. “I don’t even know if I can go back now.” “Why, have you been thinking about it?” Diane was crying too now. Paul felt very French for a moment, crying with his lover at a café. “No,” he said. “No, of course not.” “Seriously,” she said. “Seriously, I know you. You even said it yesterday, how mutable you are. What happens in five years, a year even? It’s in your nature. I don’t want to keep you from your nature.” “I was talking about astrology. Sagittarians are mutable fire,” said Paul. “It’s a metaphor. I’m not that mutable. I haven’t changed in months.” “But you want to change again sometime, right?” Paul considered. He had changed, of course, pretty recently, but nowhere near as much as he could have. He probably would want to change again at some point, maybe not back for good. He was only twenty-two. What could he know about the future? He imagined them together in five years. They’d be twenty-seven. Well, sh...