there’s a kind of beauty in seeing a bottle of water standing straight up, its top pointing toward the sky like some sort of spiralling tower — and seeing this water castle in the middle of an aisle in Target — it’s just simply pictureworthy.

I was watching it out of the corner of my eyes, my camera and other, focusing and unfocusing, blurring and unblurring, until I had the perfect shot. And I snapped. It was beautiful. Smiling at it for just an instant, I began to move into position for another snapshot.

At just the crucial moment, an out-of-focus, blurry foot connected solidly with my water bottle. I bit back a cry and hardly kept myself from leaping forward to catch it — to help it — but I still felt I couldn’t touch, like it was an object on display in a sacred museum.

I watched as it toppled, swinging and wheeling, like me in clumsy mode when I was out-of-sync and could hardly walk without keeling over, through empty space.

It fell. Slammed into the ground and bounced, and touched back down again, and made its rolly-olly topsy-turvy way to me. And the out-of-focus, blurry foot continued on its out-of-focused, blurried way.

The water bottle rolled into my foot, and stopped, paused mid-movement, and I bent down and began to pick it up when a face moved into my line of vision.

—lovebunny! Honey, what are you doing here lookin’ so sad? How dare ya, darlin’? You’re in Target! Now do something about it!

—blurry foot and out-of-focus, I reported, testing this Target — I scoped out the nametag — helper. —sylvia, I told her, —would your real name happen to be, by any chance, say . . . ‘You’re-in-my-light-now-move’?

—well, hon, you couldn’t be more obvious, Sylvia said. But she didn’t look angry, annoyed, or indignant at all. Actually, quite the opposite. She was radiant. She beamed at me. Apparently, she really liked working at this Target.

—on second thought, I stopped her just as she began to gravitate away. She turned around and locked eyes with me. Her own irises were shifting colors, as if uncertain what to choose and commit themselves to. When I was glaring at her they were light green. Now they were an intense foresty color, like a deep, dark thicket at nighttime when you were strolling and you could almost hear the werewolf’s ravenous howl . . .

When I was younger, I had an obsessed craze for passion. I would go to bookstores to find books about kissing, teenagers, even sex . . .

I would always be especially pleased when I found a book about lesbians. I just wished lesbianness was not advertised so brazenly — so obviously — so that my parents would remark loudly in eyepopping horror, —what are these books you are reading? Who do you think you are?

I am Gaze, I am Picture.

—what is your name, darling? Sylvia leaned closer to me. I could smell her flowery perfume misting around me whimsically and I resisted inhaling deeply.

—just needed to say, I told her, —get rid of that perfume and Don’t Call Me Darling.

—do you have a name? Sylvia didn’t seem annoyed at all, like the others I would always scoff at when they weren’t looking.

—is your name really Sylvia?

—no, Sylvia replied, to my surprise. —this is my honeyflower’s. my name . . . she leaned forward and whispered, —is Lyr, and you are . . . ?

I looked at her. And decided to try out her name. —syllyr? I suggested.

—beautiful! ‘you’re brilliant,’ her eyes seemed to say now. The bluegreen danced jubilantly. Suddenly, though, they went out-of-focus like the foot kicking the water bottle, and she put a finger to her temple, to ward off — a headache?

—oh honey, Syllyr whispered. —you are Gaze.

—how did you . . . ?

how did she?

—I just know these things, baby. Gaze fits you. It’s perfect for you.

—you’re perfect for me . . . I breathed, leaning forward at the same time she did.

—lyry! yelled a voice near to my delicate ears. My nostrils flared in preparation for a confrontation. I looked up and a raven-haired beauty screamed into our orbit and Lyr was laughing and hugging the new arrival as if the world would end should she stop.

It was Sylvia, and I resented it, but I supposed there was a picture hidden somewhere in that close embrace. Sylvia was a glittery perfection and I could see the love in Lyr’s silverysoft eyes.

—syllyr, I tried again.

Both of them turned to me, Sylvia with a suspicious expression, Lyr with a tender look.

—hey honeyflower, began Lyr.

Both of us leaned forward on our toes. Sylvia stared at me. Her eyes were a dark and fiery black, but the color was almost unreal, so that you could practically see the roiling fires deep inside her volcanic irises. They were far from the peace and joy in Lyr’s own.

I rocked back onto my heels. Lyr, the pictureworthy, gazeworthy beauty, had a honey flower already . . .

And it wasn’t me.