Paper Marriage
A SHORT STORY ABOUT A COUPLE WHO SOUGHT REFUGE IN AN ISOLATED GATED COMMUNITY. AS THEY SETTLE INTO THEIR TEMPORARY HOME AND ATTEMPT TO REGAIN NORMALCY, THE HUSBAND BEGINS TO NOTICE INEXPLICABLE METAMORPHOSIS IN HIS WIFE AND THEIR SURROUNDINGS.
... “Hui was miserable and exacting in countenance, and I hoped to make her less so. She and I married as a pair of optimistic strangers—tied by the red string of fate and then a wedding band. We dated for three months, were engaged for one, and finally eloped on a muggy April day. When we met, Hui was working as a data entry operator for a company in Bogor. She spent nights six days a week tapping away on a sticky keyboard, packed into an unventilated basement room with immigrant workers and other tight-lipped industry drones. The demanding hours and lack of light made her look perpetually drawn and tired. She’d come home smelling like mildew and other people’s sweat, then douse herself in boiling soapy water to make the crawling sensations stop”…