The Winning Submission from the Buzz’s Campus-Wide Fiction Contest, The Manic Pixie Dream Girl Breaks Down

Written by Yoko Zhu Graphics and Design by Tamar Ponte

The Winning Submission From The Buzz’s Campus-Wide Fiction Contest, 2022.

She takes her coffee with artificial sweetener and settles on a single boiled egg. The employee cuts it in half, divides the hard yolk, dashes red pepper on it, then hands her back the plate. Mel eats it with her fingers, nibbling at her lunch, making the most out of a tiny thing. She follows the nutritional plan Erica typed up for her. Simply looking at the list with its caveats and mathematical buzzwords like deficit and macronutrients wears her out. Erica, with her woodland deer frame and long limbs, moves through the world with a serpentine ease. It’s Erica who Mel emulates, but always finds herself falling short.

Between sips of coffee, Mel writes her self-hatred in an overly bombast poem. It’s not very good, but she doesn’t expect it to be. Once in a while, she allows herself to fall short; it makes herself feel better when she’s accomplished a significantly impressive piece.

From her peripheral vision, a stranger sits down across from her. It’s a small table, the kind where you have to be mindful that your knees don’t bump into the other person’s. Mel sneaks glances at him. His hair is onyx ink spilled on a table, aglow in the sun’s light. The stranger’s vacant gaze is drawn to the window, observing for the sake of observing, analyzing nothing in particular. He was the kind of man Erica would’ve devoured instantly, possessing a stark beauty that made everyone else seem flat, dull. She’s certain she’s amalgamated with all the East Asian girls he’s ever seen, fused into one monolith, because that’s how Mel always has been. She resumes her writing, but loses a metaphor on the tip of her tongue. It’ll never be found, lost in a landfill with all the other forgotten things.

“How’s your day been?” he asks her.“It’s been good, just beginning,” she says.

“Do you want to go somewhere with me?” he says timidly, tilting his head to the door, to the outpour of busy cars and streets. She closes her laptop screen, the gossamer lines fading to black, thrilled by the spontaneous invitation. She grabs her hand-painted tote bag, leaving the lukewarm coffee on the table.

“You’re not a serial killer are you?” she asks, stepping out into the New York street with him.

“No,” he chuckles, “I’m Jasper. I’m new to New York. Just arrived this week, actually. I was hoping you could show me around. Someplace you’d like to go.”

“I love a good bookstore,” she replies, expecting him to object, to suggest somewhere far more exciting.

He nods, as if she’s aced an invisible test, “I’ve been obsessed with Murakami lately. I first read Kafka on the Shore a couple of years ago during a power outage. I wasted all my flashlight battery on it,” he says. “We were without power for a week and without water for days. Didn’t really have food, either. I survived on a pack of ramen and Murakami.”

“His stories are magic. There’s so much symbolism in his work—so much life. I’m not quite sure I can analyze Norwegian Wood as well as the literary experts, but I got the sense there’s two categories in the face of suffering. You either keep living, or you give up. There’s not really an in-between.” She moves closer to him, as the sidewalk wanes into a skinny lane.

The corner of his mouth quirks up, and it’s a melancholy, pensive expression. She doesn’t say anything else, determined to not ruin the Universe’s gift, mar her good luck, or have him slip through her fingers.

***

The bookshop is not very crowded.

She respires in the oaky scent of paper, mingled with the faint hint of Jasper’s cologne. Mel browses, pulling spines from tightly packed shelves, mouthing the titles under her tongue. She dreams of her name honorably attached to a masterpiece she has yet to create but is determined to, a poetry collection revered long after she’s gone. If she cannot be immortalized for her beauty, have her headshot plastered in department stores like Erica, then she must do it on pure talent alone. She’s working on it now. She’s creating art, but it is not the art she’s always dreamed of: it’s melodramatic. It doesn’t feel genuine—her writer friend Soren admitted. It wasn’t a refreshing, raw voice. Soren is published with three novels. She can’t stand Soren.

“Are you a writer?” Jasper inquires. He analyzes her facial expressions, probing for a secret the way gold miners pan the muddy California waters for shiny rocks.

“I am. I’m not as good as I hoped I’d be when I was a kid, but I’ve been a writer my entire life. You’ve probably heard the story before. Parents weren’t there for me because of work, no friends growing up, retreating to books. It makes me a cliché. But honestly, composing poems is the one thing I can do naturally. I write when I’m bored of my own life, or when I need to capture my own life.”

“Can I read your writing?”Mel grimaces. “It’s still a work in progress.”

“I don’t mind,” he says, “I’ve always envied artists. I’ve also always wanted to be one, but I’m lazy in discipline. All my profound thoughts are probably already said, ten times better than I ever could.”

“You have to be selling yourself short. I’m inclined to believe you’re being humble, that there’s a morose old novelist locked somewhere inside,” she says and he laughs.

“I’m not humble. I’m well aware of all my good qualities.”

“Like the fact you’re good-looking?” She’s trying to flirt, mimic Erica’s coyness to appear witty. She pretends to be thoroughly engrossed in an almanac. A strawberry moon is anticipated to arrive next week. She keeps this in her queue of subject changes, though she’s grateful she doesn’t have to use it. Jasper grins, tilting the book in his hands down.

“Don’t be embarrassed. I know I’m attractive.”

“You are,” she finally says, after her mind flashes blank for an Erica-thing to say. It’d all sound forced on her tongue, unnatural as Latin, so she temporarily abandons the script.

They leave, each with one book in hand. Jasper buys a collection of Audre Lorde poems. For herself, she gets The Stranger by Albert Camus,

because Jasper said he believes the universe to be a fickle beast, as irrational as the old Greek gods, and absurdism was far more optimistic than nihilism.

“I’d rather be an optimist than anything in the world,” she says. They’re sitting on a park bench, smoking cigarettes, ignoring the dirty looks nearby, overprotective mothers throw at them. She leans her head back. The golden sun, Jasper’s easy warmth, and the cigarette smoke—all of it was a poem. If she was a better writer, the lines wouldn’t have flowed—they would’ve poured out of her. Yet, Mel doesn’t feel the tiniest trickle. Earlier, it would’ve bothered her. Now, she cannot care less. It’s Jasper’s eyes that mesmerize her, replacing her earliest infatuation. “When I was little, my mother used to warn me about optimism.” Mel continues, “She told me how raising your hopes always causes them to crash. If you don’t expect anything, you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the bare minimum. From her point of view, it was self-protection; she’s had her fair share of disappointments.”

“You seemed to have turned out alright.”She chuckles, “I’m only holding myself together.”

A cardinal sings a little melody to fill the empty space, until Mel finally asks, “Do you want to come to my place?”

He does. He follows her on the subway. The rowdy city pigeons understand the importance of his occasion, and they express their respect by tottering away on their small feet. Jasper talks easily, freely, like he’s known her all his life. She imagines that she’s his girlnext-door, the cute one with frilly shirts that cut right above the abdomen, the one he falls in love with. It’s easy to daydream, easy to project her expectations on a stranger she just met, and so Mel does. While he’s taking her apartment elevator up, she dreams about meeting his little sister (does he have a little sister?), and how she would take her to the nail salon to get an acrylic set.

She knows the loft isn’t special, but New York doesn’t yield luxurious homes affordably. This is her excuse, and he shrugs when she says it. “I did imagine it was bigger than mine, but I like the way you decorated it.” He gestures to the eclectic collection of thrift shop vintage, clay vases, and cheap trinkets. Often, she treats herself to the unwanted books at the thrift: the paperbacks with folded covers, hardcovers with broken spines. A savior complex.

They sprawl on the sofa with their legs propped against the Ikea table. She tries to tell a story, a funny anecdote about a bartender who made her a drink on the house, because he thought she was in Crazy Rich Asians. Jasper does not laugh. He blinks in between her sentences, tuning her out with the rest of the physical world. A cigarette hangs from his mouth. When she finishes the warbled mess of a story, he faintly nods. “I don’t see the resemblance

between you and Gemma Chan either. Strange.”

The insipid change in his demeanor makes the pit of her stomach turn. The oil turning the gears of their conversation, smoothly rotating from one topic to another with ease was suddenly wearing out. She wrinkles her nose, shifting in her seat uncomfortably, blaming the fabric scrunching under her thigh. With glassy eyes, he fixtates his gaze on the floor. There was an antique scale before him; he was gathering all his impressions of her, weighing them into a final appraisal. Either she was one of the few gems the world had to offer, or she was just like the rest of them: awkward, slow, draining, annoying, and inauthentic. His perception could only be so wrong. It would most likely be right.

“What’s on your mind?” Mel asks. She manages the illusion of confident ease, as it’s really only in posture and vocal projection.

“Not much.”“Do you want anything to drink?”

“I’m okay.” Jasper stubs out his cigarette on the edge of her glass vase. Ash particles land in the water; she makes a mental note to change the water for the flowers the minute he leaves.

She lets her gaze linger on his lips, smiling the way women in film noirs do with an intriguing seductive wryness, an invitation, really. Her ace. As a teenager, Mel practiced this expression in the bathroom mirror

for hours. It couldn’t look forced, had to appear natural, and it’s the closest Mel gets to seizing power. His shoulders shift, the crescent moon waxing, and it’s so quick she doesn’t comprehend her own movements, until she’s kissing him. She relishes his momentary surprise, the line of his mouth against hers, all enabled by her brief sense of control. The warmth burns through her like someone plucked the violin strings in her veins, releasing a reverb down her entire body. He tastes like pungent herbs, the thick woody Marlboros taste sat on her tongue, and she allows herself to enjoy it.

It’s not until he holds her face in the heart of his palm that she feels an urge to cry. Mel knows men like this. They’re arguably not bad people, filled to the brim with quirks and interests that reflect her own, but she knows that she’ll never be able to pick up the Albert Camus book and actually read it, because of him. Murakami, for a long time, will be associated with the boy who read it during a power outage. Men like Jasper won’t call, unless the television breaks and boredom chases them out of their house. Mel’s only known Jasper for a day, yet she understands him.

When the nights become longer than usual, when mascara streaks the slopes of her cheeks like rain down the river, she chides herself: it’s unhealthy to attach yourself to strangers. She forgets why it matters— why Jasper matters, why Liam matters, why Kennedy matters, why her father matters—so she laughs at own fragility, until delirium holds her like a baby.

When she first met Erica, Mel had been taken aback by her best friend’s boyfriend (now ex). At the time, she’d labeled Erica as a bird-brain, an intrinsically insecure individual despite being gorgeous. Erica fell in love with Alec, a gangly pimple-faced Italian who ate fries that fell on the floor and screamed at Erica for smiling at other men, but Mel misunderstood. It wasn’t Erica’s fault that she didn’t know Alec wasn’t anything special. It was the entirety of society that conditioned Alec to believe he was special enough to date Erica.

“You’re so cool,” he murmurs. At this moment, Jasper lifts the hem of her shirt over her head, and Mel lets him. She knows his hair is dark, his eyes are brown, and his heart is far away. In spite of this, she remembers the metaphor that she’d forgotten in the cafe. It comes to her slowly, the way sugar dissolves in hot water, but she can taste it on the tip of her tongue. Mel tilts her head back—not unhappy but not quite happy, rather a strange mix of the two. In this epiphany, she takes what is left of a man and turns him into poetry; writing she’ll never want him to read.