Real

"Angelique agreed to be my girlfriend. To
celebrate I took her to a candle-lit dinner, and
I had to keep pinching myself to make sure I
wasn't dreaming. We started seeing more of
each other. Before long, pinching stopped
being enough, and I started sticking pins in my 
face. These days even pins can't convince me
that she's really there. Every evening I prepare 
a romantic meal. As I gaze at her immaculately
arranged hair and faultlessly made-up face, I
carve chunks out of my flesh with a surgical 
saw. Somehow it still seems too perfect to be real."


Dan Rhodes, Anthropology and a Hundred Other Stories