"Hide and Seek" Imogen Heap

"I know, but who was here first?"

Silly, really, for him to assume schoolyard ethics should have a place here. Of course this--the expectation that his rules would travel with him and instantly resonate with those he just met--was a mistake he'd made in the past, and one he continued to make on a perennial basis.

"Wait your fucking turn," he said. And to her, across the table, he mouthed, "Idiot."

Her delicate face, carefully embellished with the colors of moth and butterfly wings, falsely advertised a history and complexity in character that were largely absent. Surrounded by two men who were three choice words shy of a butter knife duel, she smiled. Perfectly still, vapid as ever.

His breaths had grown shallower over these last years. Despite irrefutable scientific evidence supporting deep, diaphragmatic breathing which he accidentally found on medical websites--he regularly browsed for pathologies for which he could qualify--he breathed like a very old man with a very large thing stuck in his throat.