I stand here to present my case to the Federal Justice Bureau in light of the current situation. I endeavor to present that the events were not orchestrated with malicious intent and that my friend, Helg, is not guilty. She did not intent to bring down the entire human race with her actions. I, as witness to some of her situation know that her intents were driven by those little chemicals that swim in your head and change the course of your river one stone at a time. Allow me to relay the events of that fateful week.

We’d met for coffee at the Gabor Lounge on High Street, it was one of those sunny but bitter cold afternoons in Renalds, Michigan. She was even more stunning than the pixels on my screen had told me and when she ordered an “americano, extra-dark with one shot orange, one shot whiskey” I was as enamored as a possum.

She moved to and from the barista stand like her lower half was made of thousands of mechanical feathers, that’s what my mind thought of her. As we supped our drinks and sampled conversations we eventually fell into the rhythm of talking about our favourite painters. I said I didn’t know a great deal about painters but I had a printing of a Monet. She asked which one. I said, “The Cliffs at Etrat.” She smiled pittingly.

“Surrealism is just choking with sexual energy,” she suddenly said. Monet wasn’t a surrealist, I was sure, at least from what little art reading I could recollect.

At the time I was lost for words to reply with, but knowing Helg’s character now I wouldn’t have hesitated. I stammered out some kind of reply asking what she meant.

“Take, for example Max Ernst – no, no, take for example Dali, you know him right?” she asked

“Yes.” I said. At least that was something I could say with confidence.

“So Dali pretty much was impotent, not physically in any way, but impotent through his mind.” she said.

“Hmm,” I nodded.

She threw her hand up in passion, “He just couldn’t really get off to anything but his own hand. And its obvious once you see his work, the guy operated on an orgasmic level with his painting and he didn’t need satisfaction from slapping one body against another.”

And so we had conversations along that line, always generally in the realm of some character channeling coitus energy through their trade. For a first date I was floored by her confidence. We drank a round at The Great Grub and Hub, another at Lady of the Night, where I found myself mouth-to-mouth with a marble dance floor, sticky from the various minute offerings from customer’s drinks, and capped it off with some lip knotting in the Ol’ Henereef dive bar.

Then I found myself walking down a cobbled alleyway that hummed with the sound of an excited river which, I learned later, was the River Yile. Hand-in-hand we waltzed through a door painted to look like a melon, up three flights of stairs, through a bedroom door that didn’t look like a melon, and etcetera, etcetera. I’ll refer you to the Bureau’s and the audiences imagination for how the rest of that night goes.

Morning came and I had work, so I left early while she was still sleeping. The way the early morning rays carved her profile into a breathing Greek statue I will never forget.

The workday rolled on alright with its general hubbub of everyone trying to pretend they want to be there while seeking hundreds of small moments of reprieve to get through the day. I recall going to the water fountain at least ten times that day to rest my head. One time my colleague Weffrey found me with my head in the fountain and woke me up. Water had been gushing in my ear.

Come five o’clock I was packing to leave when I chanced a glance at my phone. The night had been swell but I hadn’t expected any messages from my courtly lady of yesterday. Games of the mind seem to be the way people like to ensnare love and one of those games is to refrain from contact to put on an air of seeming “busy.” Knowing Helg, she was not a character to care for these sorts of things and she had already loaded eight messages into my lap. Sometimes eagerness can be unattractive, but in Helg’s case she was causing my insides to transform into a butterfly.

Then I read the messages and my butterfly insides became steel wool drowning in molasses. Helg was pregnant and she was almost one-hundred percent certain. Along with molasses, a mixture of paternal love and youthful pining flooded me. It was hard not to swell up at the thought of being a father, but at the time I had to correct myself: I didn’t really know this Helg. I texted that I’d be round that evening and punched the elevator for the ground floor.

On the way to Helg’s place I replayed the night through my mind. She was on birth control (supposedly), I was on birth control (certainly), and we’d both used protection (certainly). I threw the mishap to the “ninety-nine percent effective” they stamp on everything: lady luck and sergeant statistic had dealt us a hand named Unlucky.

When I arrived at the melon door I found the buzzer which must have been designed to look like the stem of the melon; it was positioned perfectly. I pushed it a couple times. After a few minutes I tried a few more pushes but still no sound inside. I sent Helg a message on my phone and tried calling her while there I sat, perched outside the melon door like a lost fruit fly. After an hour I had to give up and tiptoed my way back down the cobbled street.

Evening settled in and I tried to calm the concerns my inner monologue was throwing into my thought bucket. Some were of concern: was she alright? Some were of malice: did she runaway? Would she return and demand support money for the child? As I was heading to bed I found my mind had lacked the creativity it needed to come up with what actually had happened.

As I was laying down for the night, my phone pinged a few messages like it was unloading the barrel of an Uzi in my ear holes and then jammed. I sprung at it like I was still that fruit fly and I was starved of my melon juice. First, she apologized, said something had come up with her mother and she had to see her. Second, she said she’d be back tomorrow evening and we could chat then. Third, and lastly, she said she was expecting twelve.