Jackknife

I ruined his life. I couldn't perfect my cooking. All fell to pieces next to Mummy's lasagna. At the table, they ask me what books I've read. I don't know.

Jack laughs at me. He offers me a cigarette and tells me 'Come to France.' 'I don't smoke, Jack.'

I ruined his life. Fell to pieces next to the domestic goddess. After dinner, they ask me what books I've read. I really don't know.

Jack looks at me, laughs and says 'Come to France already.' 'Jack, I can't cook for shit. I don't smoke. And—I'm illiterate.' Soon he will clean chop me in half.

In France, Jack does the cooking. I slosh red wine around its bottle and tell him: 'This wine is very cheap. And the cigarettes give me cancer.'


Effing Magicians

I lost my magic. He says 'I got magic on my side honey, but you don't.' He calls off the wedding and cancels all our upcoming Vegas shows. He says he can't work like this. Says the peroxide must've seeped into my brain or something. 'Thanks John, that's real sweet of you.' I bite my lip and run my fingers through my hair. A clump comes out in my hand, which I guess is the real reason he left me.

Next day, John drops round a box of my stuff, peroxide and all. I ask where my rabbit is and he tells me it's a prop so I can't have it back. I ask if he wants to stay for dinner, but he says that the new assistant is cooking tonight. 'That's nice' I say. 'What are you having, rabbit stew?'


Jack Frost

He stapled my clothes to the door. He stapled my clothes whilst I was wearing them. His way of saying 'Everyone else would've slept together by now.' Points for subtlety.

His parents have been in three times in the last hour. They said nothing. He says they're just pleased he's not gay. I tell him that it's pretty gay we haven't slept together yet, so he staples his left hand to the desk.

Downstairs, our parents decide who ruined who. I ask if his mother can cook anything else, so am refused dinner and left stapled to the door. In the morning, Daddy feeds me yesterday's lasagna. Or perhaps it is today's—it's hard to tell.


Dictionary Definition

He calls me his natural disaster. Says I'm the lesser of four evils: Famine, Warfare, Persecution and Natural Disaster.

I tell my mother and she says 'Oh that is good darling. I think he's the one.'

We're fine until we move in together. I choke when, watching the news and eating dinner, he says he's very disappointed in me for flooding England and Wales. Post-Heimlich he blames me for John Kerry losing the election. I ask him 'Am I 250 million Americans?' He says 'No. You're one very bad girl.'

If Blair loses he's going to karate chop me in half. He's been practising on planks of wood. He's pretty good.

When he asks me why I left him I give him the dictionary definition of my name: A sudden event bringing great damage, loss or destruction, but happening in accordance with the ordinary course of nature.

When that fails, I give him his: 'You mean nothing.' Says so in the dictionary.


Eleven

He wooed me with paper flowers and jack rabbits. The premise was ridiculous. Having learnt his life's work from Paul Daniels on TV in the early nineties, he was looking for his Debbie McGee, to take the act to Vegas. What I saw as problematic—my not being blonde, and his not being older than me—he didn't. He'd make a much better Elvis. He's got the sideburns for it, and me—I'm a regular pre-peroxide Priscilla.

He gets a little impatient, pulls a deck of cards from its cardboard sleeve and motions to me, that I 'pick a card, any card.' So I pick a card. When he guesses my card right I trust him with my life and with my hair.

For the act he saws me clean in half. When my hair starts falling out he uses lighting tricks and wigs. I stay because this rabbit's a jack rabbit. Because he'd make a better Elvis but he still made Vegas. Because I pull the same card over and over. Always lower than a Queen, higher than a Ten.


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