His Sole Oxymoron

She grins and presents her hand to him, showing just slightly yellow and perfectly crooked teeth. “I’m paradoxical. Who are you?”1

He tries, desperately, to suppress the tense calm that seeps into his heart. ‘She’s so gorgeous, it’s disgusting,’ he thinks. 2

“I’m oxymoron.”3

Her smile grows. “Well, how about a quick drink so we can get to know each other, friend?”4

He gives a sad smile in gratitude, his eyes welling as he gathers his thoughts for her. “My dear,” he begins slowly, “I don’t like who I am. I am a liar and a deceiver, but I am who I am. You, you defy intuition! You challenge bias and resist previous data! You are completely absurd, and you make absolute sense!”5

She smiles, pretending to act interested as oxymoron continues.6

“Oh, how I’ve tried for my short existence to rid myself of these contradictions! But do you know what ‘oxy’ means in Latin? It means ‘sharp’. And do you know what ‘moron’ means? It means ‘dull’! So I, myself, am an oxymoron – I am the ultimate contradiction, a man who has no valued purpose but to confuse and rhetoric, and on occasion to make a vague point! 7

“It’s cruel kindness, love,” he continues, “but I must leave us alone together. Two contradictions, joined, make way too much sense to work out.” He closes his eyes as he looks into hers.8

And as she turns and walks away, she feels very little emotion for the troubled man she is leaving. “Ah, well,” she thinks, “it was really nothing more than apathetic interest anyway.” 9