“And I’d forgotten you were naked the first time we met, B.”
I wound a blue streak of her hair around my finger. “You were blinded by magnificence.”
Her face crinkled into a smile, reminding me how much I wanted to get her home. “When did you start remembering?”
“As soon as you stepped out of the sheen. It was weird. My body knew we were galactic glue, but it took my brain a while to catch up.”
“Aw, B. So true.” Diane slipped a hand into mine. “Galactic glue.”
Seventeen Syllables by Kellen Sinclair
Gareth stood outside Storyville bookstore, fiddling nervously with the strap of his messenger bag.
Guilt roiled in his gut. He knew that, technically, he was doing nothing wrong. Also, technically, he was doingsomethingwrong.
He was using a book without buying it.Misusingit, more like.
He took a wallet from his pocket, carefully opening it.
It was filled with tiny colourful squares of paper, all of them scribbled with hand-written notes.
* * * *
It had all started just over two months ago.
Gareth’s friend had just moved in with his boyfriend, and Gareth had been shopping for a housewarming gift.
Since he was in the area for work and he remembered there was a good bookshop in Rookton, he had wandered into Storyville, looking for inspiration, until he eventually meandered his way into the travel section. The boyfriend was half-Japanese, so he’d had the idea of seeing if there was a nice coffee table book with pictures of neon Tokyo cityscapes, or peaceful mountain views—orkawaiisweets andanime-inspired desserts, since that was where Hokuto’s interestsreallylay (maybe the cooking section was a more likely place to look).
He had been scanning the rows of spines, when one emblazoned withHaiku Poemshad jumped out.
He remembered a group of them had gone over to Hok’s old place to taste-test a new cupcake flavour—matcha cake with yuzu buttercream and blueberry compote,absolutely delicious—and someone had noticed a magnet on the fridge which read:
Haiku poems are fun
but they don’t always make sense
Refrigerator
After they’d laughed at this seeming nonsense, Hok had explained thathaikuwere a type of Japanese poem, made up of three lines with a five-seven-five syllable configuration.Haikuweren’t meant to rhyme or have multiple stanzas like English poetry forms; they were little individual vignettes, snippets of life captured and immortalised in seventeen syllables.
They’d had fun composing their own terriblehaiku, verses getting more disjointed and repeatedly miscounting the syllables after Hok opened somesaketo go with the cupcakes and snacks.
Hoping he’d found the perfect gift, Gareth had picked up the book, read the blurb on the back, flipped through the pages idly.
The book had fallen open to a spread containing a Post-it note, tucked inside like a bookmark.
Was this book a second-hand copy? Gareth had checked it for shelf wear, but it otherwise looked brand new, the corners pristine, spine uncracked.
Something had been written on the square of paper.
Gareth had read it.
Then hastily snapped the book shut, put it back on the shelf, and hurriedly left the store, his face glowing bright red.
* * * *
He’d ended up getting a tiny sculpture of a dragon, made from old cutlery and clock innards, from Chrysalis Gallery & Café. The newly-moved-in couple had loved it, naming it Gary the Dragon after him.
