CONJUNCTIONS:37, Twentieth Anniversary Issue, Fall 2001

Match John Edgar Wideman

Jules and Rita were rivals in the office and, therefore, hated each other. You'd often overhear, even when you didn't try, words like sexist, racist, pig, bitch, phony, liar, chauvinist, dyke, punk in conversations about the other each regularly engaged in with favorite colleagues. So it comes as a great surprise to learn from eyewitnesses that Rita and Jules embraced then kissed, a kiss hotter they say than the scourging fire driving them from the office to the window ledge where they joined hands and leaped, falling like birds of flame the day the 767 toppled the Twin Towers.