Every night I coax my beloved to tell me again how she loves me. “I will never choose you,” she says with a steady and a voice that betrays only boredom.

So many years now, but to my ears it still sounds as brittle as the breaking neck of a tiny bird.

The mistake is not the reply. The mistake is to ask the question that you have made your whip.

I know I will ask her again tomorrow if only to stay smug in the knowledge that there are some things that indeed, do not change.