excerpt from Identity: Shift

“She had a look. A presence about her that perhaps made her a tad more beautiful than she actually was; if that makes sense. I suppose if she were a corpse she wouldn’t be the best looking one but alive she was dynamite. Her hair was cut in a Joan of Arc style. Expensive, not like Moe’s from the Three Stooges, but more like Coco Chanel’s in the 20’s. Her high cheekbones were full, and of a natural rosy colour which offset the blackness of her hair. There was a contrast that any artist could pick up on. Her eyes were a soft brown, and big, almost saucer sized. They must have been huge in her child head but now they seemed to fit perfectly. Seemed as though you could park a Buick in them; if you could find the valet and get a ticket stub. I loved her. I loved her from the second I saw her. I knew because all my foolish maleness puffed up. I started bragging like a jackass and I ‘turned’ up at every place she was for the whole evening. But if you ever saw her or knew her there is no way you couldn’t understand. She moved as though she had just walked out of a Bottecelli painting. The gravity of the beginning of all life swayed in her hips.”