Hiatus

by James Steerforth

“So what’s wrong with me wanting the archetypal thing proven in thousands of years of human survival from you?” She gave me that quizzical look of hers – with the right eyebrow slightly raised – I’d come to love in the seventeen days of our acquaintance. “There’s nothing wrong with that – per se,” she eventually replied with some hesitance, “except that, even though I like you a lot – much to my surprise, I must say – I couldn’t say I know you – not enough, anyway, while you apparently already see our unborn children in my eyes.” “I’m not ashamed of what I said, Séraphine, and yes, I do see them clearly: a girl named Amanda and a boy named Akash.” This was when she got up and left me sitting in the bright sunshine of that Sunday afternoon on the banks of the Seine, not to be seen again until I accidentally ran into her in Bangkok of all places years later. When two-year-old Amanda and I came to visit as she held Akash in her arms after an easy delivery, she said, “I still don’t know how you came to predict all this in Paris – such gall! – but we could still change his name, right?”

6S

James Steerforth is the pseudonym of a writer, painter and translator who loves to put on various masks.