she goes by asmiss t. a. chesterton as she goes by you don’t quite know how to approach her. except by accident

(and then she answers that her name is ann

but friends may call her tom. like ‘tom & jerry’: the grey cat, the brown mouse he never gets to eat)

(it’s like you’re missing something right away)

she holds a grudge against shakespeare: ‘a rose by any other name’. she’d hold a grudge against her parents but hating someone live requires much more effort.

and they are lovely people (if not completely sane)

and then again: she’s almost past it. past being five and snubbed, being fifteen and ‘brill’.

so yes, her name’s tomorrow. so what. she knows a girl named milk.

the life is part-time working part-time studying and partying all the time.

she meets the boy in a strange house as it gets lighter, and the crowd wakes up on chairs sills and floors inside the bathtub.

they raid the fridge he asks her how she likes her eggs and she is done for. she meets the man inside a little room at a museum, as they show a video about the lives of ants. she hears him say that this is too much soap.

she laughs, and then apologizes for it he doesn’t mind they watch the rest together.

(but how? but how-why-why me? and oh my lord why are there two of them?)

she’s got a vague suspicion hat she’s supposed to choose (and ‘vague’ here stands for ‘written in the neon letters’)

and this is simply cruel, since do you know that it takes ages, ages to decide on type of ice-cream when she goes shopping?

and this, they — well it is no ice-cream. and it is not a question of who runs faster jumps higher or hits harder.

they both are quite perfect not suitable for any kind of comparison not at all

she thinks she might be sick

and this is life: there is so much of it. there is so much of it that she would like to share

but not herself not like this

not today.

— Katariina Kottonen, December 1st, 2010