Peaces

by Helen Oyeyemi

You run the romantic gauntlet for decades without knowing who exactly it is you’re giving and taking such a battering in order to reach. You run the gauntlet without knowing whether the person whose favour you seek will even be there once you somehow put that path strewn with sensory confetti and emotional gore behind you.

Even though I know several, and even though I understand that for five out of seven of the female loners I know, it’s truly their choice, the next female loner I meet never benefits from these other friendships I share, because at the moment our paths cross I instantly revert to Oh God, what ails this person??

this mongoose would completely lose it, for no reason at all, and the only thing that restored her to her right mind was copious Pepsi consumption. I tried not to let it show, but I was a bit shaken by the case of the Bombay mongoose. Not even Coke . . . Pepsi. The preferred beverage of souls damaged beyond repair.

I’m not claiming that I deserve to be able to go through life with stanzas from the poem that is Xavier Shin on my lips and in my heart. It’s not about merit . . . this miracle can happen because Xavier likes having me around as well. For all I know, this is his favourite hobby: colliding with somebody who had made their mind up, taking that person by the hand and casting such an abundance of moonlight that the one he’s with begins to perceive evidence they’d overlooked when preparing their estimation of this dingy world. Evidence that makes the verdict unjust.