Something unfinished, but hanging there. Fiction meets its maker.

She was an average-shaped girl. In this town, that meant she was invisible. Her hair was a muddied streak of red and brown, licks of goldenrod. The roots of it were a fawn-brown. She must have been blonde as a child and he imagined her still slipping and telling everyone that she was naturally blonde. Things had changed though. Beneath the constant rotation of dye, her hair had darkened and turned ash. She'd be gray by forty, but her reliable comfort stayed. Her posture was terrible -- that curve of her spine and slouched shouldered-pose over her book. Stellan watched as she meticulously peeled back the protective plastic layer that covered the thick hardback. His chin buried into the tops of the hands spread out in front of him on the desk. His eyes didn't waver, but when her's did they realized that their eyes were the same watery blue. Back home, fifteen hundred miles away, the girl's mother had a picture that documented this color. It was a sea at storm, all rabid froth and wreckage. The frame was an ugly brown with a black sooty streak in the middle of it. Her mother claimed that she had lit the picture on fire when she was younger, but no recollection past that story exists otherwise. It's an interesting idea though. She likes to think that she is capable of damage. In a way, she is. The color of the paperback lifts as the plastic is shredded away.

"Why do you do that?" He asks finally, but not to her surprise. She shrugs and continues to let a rippling piece of plastic feed up from the book. The cover feels waxy beneath. When she hits the snag, the silence strung between them is broken like a chain. Creak! Creeeak! The girl grimaces and Stellan's head lolls. His knuckles bury into his cheek now. He is most handsome like this. When he is lazy and at rest. He's something from an old neoclassical painting. He is more real than real with his curling hair and sensitive mouth. He has the look of someone who will not live long and must make up for the lack of time with beauty. Unlike her, he begs to be noticed. She resents that. Creak! Still, that would not keep her from fucking him in the book stacks that loom behind them. Creak.

After a moment, "I have to. I started and now I have to finish. I think I'm done but there's always a little piece curling up from the paper."

"Do you start everything you finish," he asks.

"No," she replies in a firm tone. Her mouth is soft though. She's grinning over and shaking her head at him as if they are sharing a private joke. He seems to perk beneath that look. She is not beautiful, but there is a kind and gentle quality to her. Then again, she might just be polite. Stellan props himself back upright, an elbow is anchored into the table and his fist smears up against his ear. He watches the conscious spread of her hands over the book. She resists picking though she wants to. He wonders what else she picks at. Is it a nervous habit?

"What's your name?"

"Kim," she says. Her eyes crease with a polite smile. They look like the moon. Happy and bent at the corners. Her teeth are symmetrical and straight in their pose. She waits for reciprocation.

"I'm Stellan."

"Nice to meet you," she says with a nod. It is a response that is familiar and well used in this country. He doesn't know how to respond and smiles dumbly. His head nods as if he agrees. Yes, it is nice.