Main Character Vibes

No rose that withers can ever bloom again

In the skies of late October, the lengthening of the night and the shortening of the day compete to capture the city's hearts and minds. The outcome of this daybreak tension results in a false dawn where the sun suddenly appears in the sky; without introduction, without foreplay. But even before being ensconced with the light of a new day, Angie was already wide awake in bed.

Resting on her side, the screen of her phone cast a bright blue light that strained her eyes' ability to see anything beyond the darkness of her perimeter. Engaged in the romantic affairs of being in her early twenties, Angie's thumb was growing weary from swiping across the screens of various dating apps; Tinder, Bumble, Hinge. In a proud and indifferent display of women's privilege of being the sexual selectors of the species, she was discarding all of the various eligible men within the city's radius; men who took the time and put in the effort to craft the perfect dating profile. But it wasn't a haphazard swiping session of rejection, there was a purpose to it. There was the intentionality of pursuit in what she was doing. Her searching eyes intensely accentuated her face that wore the hopeful expectation of wide possibilities but narrowed around the distinctiveness of particularity...one possibility in particular; the cute guy whom she saw at the coffee shop every morning.

Of course, throughout the countless mornings, where they encountered each other, she could have initiated a conversation, could have taken the first move in breaking the barrier of strangeness between her and him. But Angie knew that she was more eloquent speaking online than in person...without the stress of eye contact and reality's stage fright. Besides, eagerly speaking first would have her commit to yielding too much power over to him. And being in her early twenties, Angie hadn't even undergone her quarter-life crisis yet. She was too young to go after what she wanted with true courage, without fear of failure or rejection; life hadn't bruised her ego enough for her to learn not to take herself too seriously.

So much so, that she took herself to task whenever she caught herself smiling at her phone. She felt like a simp – like she was loyal to a guy she wasn't even dating. But more than catching deadly flu, she feared catching feelings. And over the three-year romantic encounters at the café with him, she knew she was terminally infected. Strangely she was OK with it. Mostly because if it had to be one guy it might as well be him, besides, it was exhausting texting 10 different guys 'how her day went.'

With yet another morning of exasperating her digital search for the male version of her own Cinderella, Angie resigned herself with a half-sleepy sigh before she got out of bed to commence her preparation for the day.

Coming out of the shower, her flowery coconut soapy fragrance competed in the air with the wafting scents of breakfast food that her mother, Clara, was preparing downstairs; so that the eggs, bacon, pancakes, maple syrup, and coffee all had a coconut after-scent.

Angie stood in front of the mirror almost fully dressed, artistically taking the time to add the details on the painting that was her outfit. Her naturally cascading dark red hair added the threatening charm of malevolence – a mirror reflection of a sinister beauty who was at once intense and tragic. She quickly took a snap of her outfit and sent it to the Snapchat universe; friends, frenemies, stranger followers, and the fake accounts of jealous Exes. She used social media to impress, injure, and influence.

"Angéline! Breakfast!" Madame Desbiens' French-accented words echoed from downstairs to reach her daughter's wincing ears. Angie hated to be called by her full francophone name. The truncation to "Angie" was the result of a conscious act of wanting to fully express how she felt. The problem of not being enough of something – too Anglophonic for her background and too Francophonic for her chosen home. But she couldn't escape all of the stereotypes. True to the notoriety of French-Canadian dapperness and style as an aesthetic ideal, Angie's fashion sense impelled her to reach for a black bowler chaplain hat before she satisfyingly went downstairs. Dressing dapperly was a form of good manners.