“Next.”
written by: Banyan Chung
Another regular workday. Another cicada buzzing on this sweltering island. Another couple came to her counter excitedly and handed her the form. When everything is done, these two strangers in front of her will be legally trapped with each other forever.
Why suffer, she thinks. Although she has been in charge of this “happy” thing for long, she still fails to grasp a bit of fun from it. Who needs love? Who even needs friends? Like Yvonne, the college roommate that you were close with for more than ten years but hasn’t contacted you forever even when she arranged a college friends’ reunion? You have lost her, but you’re still fine, right? You don’t even care. So who needs relationships? I don’t need one.
As cicadas buzzed desperately in the banyan trees outside the office windows to attract female mates, here came the last couple of this morning.
She couldn’t breathe. Her face was as pale as the girl’s white dress.
She took the form that the smiley couple offered, on which their names were written:
“Bride: Yvonne Chen”
Outside the window, mating calls from nature continued, and the girl in the white dress said something, but she couldn’t hear it anymore.
