Match
Jules and Rita were rivals in the office and, therefore, hated each other.
You'd often overhear, even when you didn't try, words like sexist,
racist, pig, bitch, phony, liar,
chauvinist, dyke, punk in
conversations about the other each regularly engaged in with favorite
colleagues. So it comes as a great surprise to learn from eyewitnesses
that Rita and Jules embraced then kissed, a kiss hotter they say than the
scourging fire driving them from the office to the window ledge where they
joined hands and leaped, falling like birds of flame the day the 767
toppled the Twin Towers.
Copyright 2001, John Edgar Wideman
Reprinted from Conjunction
20th Anniversary Issue with permission of author
nidus is an online publication
supported by the Writing
Program
at the University of Pittsburgh's English
Department.