‘Appetites’
— Joyce Chong
One of my favourites in a series of stories about various different scenarios (and various different boyfriends) in which things don’t quite work out, in which things are slightly off or a little strange and they only get stranger as the stories go on. Not in an ominous kind of way, but just different. The way people tend to drift apart from one another, the way a small tear in your second-favourite sweater can slowly fray and grow in size.
Something I loved about this story was the subtle jab at TV boyfriends/husbands, a character who is always in the midst of a conflict, pre story resolution. You are always just outside the action, the real important parts. There is a villain, but only in the distance. Only implied. You become a background character, your boyfriend is the protagonist of some gravely important story that you can’t seem to access, or be a part of. Zach’s stories always take such beautifully strange turns and leave you feeling almost alone, contemplative, or melancholic. Not to say that they are depressing, but that they seem to hold so much more than you thought they could.