Milkman

that recent alarming and alerting sunset I’d experienced with maybe-boyfriend,

Not only was he not yet dead, he was well into having stepped up and closed in on foreplay predations.

One was that that long-term rumour of third brother-in-law being in la-la-land as regards the political problems was incorrect because he was in touch with what was happening politically.

With that, one-quarter rape became our district’s default sexual charge.

I knew it had happened this time because of the milkman and his involvement, and by ‘involvement’ I mean connected, and by ‘connected’ I mean active rebellion, and by ‘active rebellion’ I mean state-enemy renouncer owing to the political problems that existed in this place.

This time too, as in the parks & reservoirs, he was looking aslant and not directly at me; more of a gaze to the side of me.

Even at the outer limits of absurdity and contradiction people will make up anything. Then they will believe and build on this anything.

Nobody seemed bothered by the guns and I too, glancing at them, wasn’t bothered by them.

She didn’t want the truth. All she wanted was confirmation of the rumour.