Maria chases dreams like a lion does its prey: she bares teeth at her ambitions and threatens to pulverize them, and maybe that’s what makes Maria so hard to love.

Maria is not romantic. 
Maria achieves her fate in the form a dull marriage and a stable future. 
Maria laughs, Maria pretends, and Maria thrives. 

Maria is happy. 
Maria is not happy. 
Maria is catatonic.

Maria would rather experience life the way she does snow—to watch herself fall softly through a fogbordered pane, avoid the smogcovered bits, avoid getting her boots wet. 

Maria likes flora more than fauna. 
Maria does envy dogs and she can appreciate cows, and she dislikes the word abattoir––it sounds too poetic.
Maria has a weak spot for water species. 

Maria needs a new kidney. 
Maria has too much pride. 
Maria is losing her dignity. 

Maria books a seaside hotel room with a balcony. 
Maria loves to blow smoke at the clouds.
Maria dares herself to run up and down the beach naked. 
Maria has an appetite for clichés, like the image of a desperate woman streaking or weeping at her own reflection, or a neat synopsis on a back cover—Protagonist seems to have it all, until one day, Protagonist pauses to look into the bathroom mirror, notices a black crow perched on the windowsill behind her, and Protagonist’s hyaluronic acid swollen lips twist into a silent wail, pedicured toes grip onto the fleecy terry cloth, white shirts wrinkle, they brown at the collar, they fill at the waistline, art lessons get consumed by second jobs, yellow price tags become appealing. 

Maria knows she is too weak to run, so she negotiates with herself: what about walking up and down the beach half-clothed, barefoot?
Maria crushes her cigarette into a sapcrusted corner of the mahogany balustrade. 
Maria is a four star hotel balustrade vandalizer. 

Maria gets a table for one on the terrace of the hotel restaurant overlooking the sea. 
Maria sits too close to the speakers, but she can still hear the waves over the catchy song about an umbrella. 

Maria pictures the darkest recesses of the ocean. 
Maria remembers reading that the glowing sucker octopus creates light using its body.
Maria likes the phrase glowing sucker octopus—it does not sound too poetic. 
Maria understands that light travels differently underwater.

Maria orders a bottle of chardonnay with spaghetti alla puttanesca. 
Maria asks for cheese and the waiter brings her pecorino, though he calls it parmesan. 
Maria does not correct him.

Salwa Benaissa is a Moroccan-born writer based in Prague, Czech Republic.