June 2026 - Vol. 23, Issue 3

When Nina was happy, she would cry. Not joyful tears that seeped out among smiles, but great racking sobs and raw primordial howls that left her shaking, damp and breathless. When she was angry, her words would sound to others like nurturance, care, and love, in their purest, most untainted forms. Whatever feelings stormed about inside her, their very opposites projected from her face, her voice, her movements, no matter how carefully she tried to stop them.  Excitement expressed itself as dread. Earnest appreciation came out contemptuous, mocking.

The only people who sought her out were those she could not stand. She found it difficult to lay down boundaries so that people listened.

“Please just leave me alone,” she’d say, coy and flirtatious, smiling. It never really worked.

She felt always like a tiny, war-torn nation denied legitimacy.

At various points throughout her life, she had had friends, however – good people, who took her at her words, who made the effort to understand her and her rare condition. But one by one, they fell away. When they’d confide each triumph or tragedy of their lives, they would know, would understand objectively at her dismay at their new babies, or joy at their bereavements, wasn’t real. But eventually, some discordant comment would stick, would worm its way beneath the skin, become a canker it was no longer possible to make allowances for.

“We care about you,” they’d say, and mean it. “But we can’t be in your life. Take care. We’ll send you Christmas cards.”

They’d choose to take her unaffected magnanimity on these occasions at face value. To make it easier on her, they told themselves.

She was no longer surprised by these excisions, but she couldn’t stop herself from being lonely. She seemed the inverse of everyone she encountered, with their friends and family and social ease.

One day, travelling on a train to the shoe factory at which she worked, Nina met someone who said by way of introduction, “I like your dress,” in a tone most usually reserved for insults.

“Thank you,” she spat back, unembarrassed and disgusted. She liked to give the words of others more weight than their sounds, whenever possible.

“My name’s Alex,” said the stranger, offering a hand to shake with rude disdain, and proffering a scowl.

“Nina,” said Nina.

They met often in the next few weeks. They shared a slice of cake, exchanging hostile glares, and made the waitress laugh behind her hands. They cried for hours at each others’ jokes, and walked through the local park, where outsiders stared, bemused to see two people scream sweet nothings with such turbulent rage.

Six months later, a miserable and horrified “Yes,” was spoken in answer to a question popped by someone very much in hate.

The pews were empty on the day, the priest confused, uneasy. Both tears and laughter were to be expected on an occasion such as this, but what he saw looked wrong, somehow.

The couple knew they seemed bizarre, unstable, disrespectful of each other. They knew they looked as if divorce were imminent, inevitable. But they did not care, because they understood each other perfectly, and what beyond that even mattered?