Cleopatra and Frankenstein

by Coco Mellors

She always said that a building should be two parts contentment, one part desire. Cleo had never understood what that meant, but now the phrase returned to her like a prophesy. Two parts contentment, one part desire. It seemed a good formula for living, though one she had not mastered yet.

“I should have known she wasn’t right for me,” Levi says. “When she designed our band flyer using Comic Sans.”

He had offered them moments when they wanted months, years, marriages.

Nothing changes if nothing changes.

Because he was her brother and she was his sister. It was that simple and that complicated.

It struck her that adult life was endlessly harsh and exciting, something to be overwhelmed by again and again, like a wave beating her down as she tried to stand.

I need to make money. I need to write today. I need to clean the bathroom. I need to eat something. I need to quit sugar. I need to cut my hair. I need to call Verizon. I need to savor the moment. I need to find the library card. I need to learn to meditate. I need to try harder. I need to get that stain out. I need to find better health insurance. I need to discover my signature scent. I need to strengthen and tone. I need to be present in the moment. I need to learn French. I need to be easier on myself. I need to buy organizational storage units. I need to call back.

Frank looked up and saw Cleo was watching him with that curious intensity of hers. She was expecting something from him, he knew, some response he didn’t know how to give. What he understood was language. Branding. What a dirty word that had become, but there was a straightforwardness to it verging on the sublime for him. All interactions were, at heart, transactional; at least advertising didn’t pretend. This subtle world of shade and lines Cleo occupied, ostensibly so full of meaning, potentially so meaningless … Frank felt like he was trying to open a package with the instructions written on the inside.

Eleanor got this version of Frank, the sober, thoughtful man who took her suggestions, while Cleo had endured the drunken predecessor like a fool.

It was a relief to live from the inside out at long last.

When the darkest part of you meets the darkest part of me, it creates light.

Now she had completed that process on her own. She had met the darkest part of herself and created this.