already known, with the clarity of a high resolution photo, that she
wanted to be a cook. I also liked that we had so much in common,
from our mutual love of cricket (the insect, not the game) to our mutual
hatred of words that rhyme with types of cheese. That, I realised, was
why we both loved souffle so much, it doesn’t rhyme with anything.
Except bouffle. (It was also why we both hated my neighbour Mrs
Glubble-Doster so much). As time passed on my digital clocks and
Gabie and I became closer emotionally, if not geographically, Ollie and I
started to travel to Korea more often, so Gabie and I were often closer
geographically as well as emotionally, but then further apart again
geographically, if not emotionally, when we went home again. I was
never particularly good at geography, which made the whole thing
pretty hard to deal with. Ollie and Gabie got on like a swan on fire,
making each other laugh and cry (with laughter) and this confirmed what
I had known from the moment I first spied Gabie across that room at
K-Con; that Ollie was a brilliant guy. And also, this was the girl I wanted
to marry (Gabie, not Ollie). This was hard for me to comprehend,
because I’d always thought of myself as a happy-go-lucky bachelor,
more at home with a digital clock and an imaginary carrot friend, than a
wife, but I guess now I knew what I’d known I knew before I knew I
knew it, you know? The thing I’d known I knew was that I knew Gabie
was the love of my life, and nothing Rex could say would change my
mind. Muncho was happy for me of course, he loved Gabie almost as
much as he loved Ollie, and he hoped that true love would enable her
to see him. It didn’t, and that was a shame.
I tried to make sure I spent time with Ollie, Muncho and Rex in
between texting and calling Gabie, but my heart and mind were often
elsewhere. Even my games of chess with Muncho no longer
captivated me as they once had. A few years ago Muncho had
invented his own version of chess where all the pieces were different
root vegetables and his favourite opening was the onion ring’s gambit.
With all the different rules and roots, it was shallot to concentrate on.
He’d recently tried to ‘improve’ other games, and insisted on hour long
games of Monopoleek whenever I got off the phone to Gabie. Rex
was even more grumpy and pretentious than usual, and his annoying