Penance

by Eliza Clark

At school, Violet dragged unrelated conversations kicking and screaming back to Pokémon and Sailor Moon, back to Terry Pratchett books the other children hadn’t read. She had difficulty understanding how she was supposed to talk to people. It didn’t seem to click that conversations generally aren’t two people talking at each other about the things they like; they are not two monologues with each person taking turns.

They both looked at her pleadingly, Dolly and Jayde. It made Violet think about the way she was often presented with binary choices like this in video games. She thought about Telltale Games, Y Character is grateful or something, paired with the stern X Character will remember that pop-ups after you make a choice.