She told me; stop picking at my food.

Chomp, mutter, cough, clink, the exciting sounds of the restaurant.  Can’t relax next to the window.  Taxi cabs beaming across my face, the room flicking yellow as they indicate to go either or.  I drink too much wine, too quickly.  Not even at dessert and I’m glued to the chair.  I cannot move because that’ll give everything away.  I feel like the floor is rolling surf, and I am trying not to capsize.

She told me that God was like Apple, whilst flicking her phone.  Deliberately creating things that were inherently designed to be flawed and eventually fail, just so they can be replaced, and the users punished.  Hacking away at a piece of steak, a rhetorical question meanders over the candles; why create something just to be adored?

I tell her television careers have been built on less, and she doesn’t laugh.

*

It’s the black dress that does it.  Her little black dress drives me crazy.  When she is at work I remove it from the wardrobe and slash it to ribbons.  It’s a ritualistic execution, death by 1000 slices, just so the fucking thing knows how I feel.

*

One morning I can’t find her.  The bed is empty and colder than usual.  In a purple dawn I rush to the beach and find a trail of clothes – and a slashed dress – on the seawall, followed by her unique instep.  I follow.  The footprints end where the tide breaks on the sand.