Damaged Goods

     "For fun," I tell him before plugging my headphones back into my ears. It is nice to have a day where I don't force myself to be social. Yesterday I slept at 2 AM, and woke up at 4 AM. I couldn't go back to sleep, so I went to skate all around Barcelona. I skated at the MACBA (Museum of art something), On the way I stalked a pigeon and felt the urge to squeeze it but my hands were full with my skateboard. I feel like a voyeur, an observer. Invisible, I watch people and it's like watching little vignettes. In the bathroom, some girls argue about whether "retina" is a cream or a part of the eye. I laugh inside, but I say nothing and hum.
​     Isolation gives me time to reflect: the two female superpowers are empathy and giving life. How can I incorporate that into my story, which I plan to be a modern retelling of Kiều? After skating I sat down to rest at 12 noon, when the sun was hot, and the sky bright and blue. I took out my copy of Truyện Kiều and realized that all my falling from skating had smashed the banana in my backpack...right onto the top of all the book pages. I sat in the shadow of the museum for twenty minutes, ripping out all the banana-sauce-soaked edges so the book wouldn't decay. Now the Tale of Kieu is ripped and ragged. The form is ugly, but the content remains. A book about a girl with a ripped, torn life has ripped, torn pages. Is she beautiful?