‘What is the story that you are living now about this situation?’

Again:

‘What is the story that you are living now? About this situation?’

Is your truth simply a fiction?

Is the story that you are telling yourself – this flimsy, fragile, hashed-together fragment – all that you truly have?

If your answer to the last question is in the affirmative (and Charles’s jury is currently still out on this), then it definitely needs to be a good one (a good story).

If the story is all you have –

then it needs to be a great story.

Charles looks at Ying Yue and he thinks, What is the story that you are living now about this situation?

Ying Yue must be aware of the fact that he is aware of the fact that she is lying about Wang Shu’s feelings with regard to the Alan Wallwork tiles, but still, still …

What is Ying Yue’s story? What story is she living now?

?

These people are morons?

If I just say the right things – make the right noises – it’ll all be okay?

The world is simply a wild and delirious phantasm (and I am a little feather floating though the cosmos)?

Charles scowls, and then wonders, What is the story that I – Charles – am living now about this situation?

Uh …

These people are morons?

If I just say the right things – make the right noises – it’ll all be okay?

The world is simply a wild and mysterious phantasm (and if I could simply find the perfect toaster/kettle/juicer it’ll all be dandy)?

How odd that he and Ying Yue (this strange, bedraggled, ill-drawn creature; this girl, part-stuffed, badly sewn, full of otherness) might actually be spinning the same story.

No!

No!!

Surely not?

He gazes at Ying Yue, owlishly.

There is something so plain, so empty, so smooth about Ying Yue’s face that it is almost otherworldly. It is the face of a mammal, though. Yes. Just about. Ying Yue is a mammal. But oceanic. Cetacean. More like a dolphin than a person. Giant forehead. Tiny, friendly eyes. Dolphin smile. No chin. And her torso. Dolphin-shaped. Little arms like flippers.

Charles focuses in on Ying Yue’s bandaged flipper.

‘What actually happened to your flipper?’ he wonders.

‘Sorry?’ Ying Yue’s smile wavers.

Charles starts.

DID I ACTUALLY JUST SAY THAT?!

‘ WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED TO YOUR FLIPPER?!’

DID I ACTUALLY JUST SAY THAT?!

Out loud?!

‘Have you ever considered covering your drying rack with a sheet?’ Avigail interrupts. She is re-hanging the arm bears T-shirt. The offending broom has already been placed neatly out of harm’s way. Avigail has a terrible feeling that the oyster shell hit and the broom fall may now spell disaster for the sale.

Yes.

Um …

Hang on a second …

Did Charles (illumined Charles) actually just utter the word ‘flipper’?

Flipper?!

Avigail tries to re-run Charles’s last sentence in her mind with a series of other words replacing flipper. But she can’t. There aren’t any other words to replace ‘flipper’.