a gift for Amy.
“God acts solely from the laws of his own nature, constrained by none.”
THE ETHICS, PART I, PROPOSITOIN 17., BARUCH SPINOZA
 

You the reader can imagine it so, just as I’m bouncing around an idea for an extremely short story, Amy steps into where I am sitting, a café on the second floor of the Dana Porter library, asking me to give my estimation of her.

In order for the reader to have more freedom when participating in the magic of words I decide to mimic the big authors, putting forward three results instead of just one as I usually do.

              i. I tell her she is very beautiful, and she pulls me away with her. We make love immediately, and I never remember anything of these long or short
                 ideas again.

              ii. I tell her she is very beautiful, and she goes off with pride. I feel a great pain to realize that I love her fiercely. In the days that follow, I cannot
                think about anything other than her.

             iii. I tell her she is very beautiful. Satisfied, but with the instinctual sense of a woman, she looks into my eyes and finds that there is no longer a
                vital passion that renders love. We split up and I continue with my prior ruminations.

Reader, can’t you see, I had no other choice.
 

-- translated by Kaitlin Rees
-- photo by Nguyễn Man Nhiên