Becoming, Pending Review

A short work of fiction. 1 Ruth called during an episode of Seinfeld that was being generated as Alexandre watched. She was already at the cinema. He asked the generator how much of the episode remained. It asked when he needed to leave. “Two minutes,” he said. He found his coat while it finished. Ruth had kept him a seat in the crowded cinema. She moved her coat without looking at him. They were showing an old film whose maker kept appearing onscreen to interrupt one story with another. When Alexandre leaned toward Ruth, she touched his wrist without taking her eyes off the screen. He settled back. For a while he’d wanted the man to get on with it; now he wanted to see what he’d do next. Mara wrote the next morning to ask him to check a paragraph about his work. They’d run separate research groups at the university. She’d just moved, and a picture of her new kitchen had started an exchange with her former housemates. She was making an album for their private group. His paper lay…