Fool's Paradise

Arthur drifts like a moth through the dusty cantinas of a Mexican border pueblo, his gaze fixed on Rosa—the flame-twirling dancer whose hips write incantations in smoke—yet Poll, the bar-moth with soot on her wings, aches to reroute that gaze toward herself. One night she slips Arthur a celebratory cigar; the fuse hisses, the blast blooms, and the world is snuffed into darkness. Blinded, disoriented, he is gently gasping for orientation; Poll, seizing the vacuum, murmurs Rosa’s name until the syllables graft themselves onto her own silhouette. A hasty marriage ensues, its vows sealed by touch rather than sight. Months later, scalpels and surgeons in a San Diego clinic restore the light; the first thing Arthur sees is not the face he expected but a stranger wearing his ring. Betrayal scalds hotter than gunpowder. Without farewell he books passage east, chasing the mirage of Rosa to the teak temples of Siam, leaving Poll clutching the ashy aftertaste of a love that detonated in her own hand.