A small story:

One of the many highly satisfying things about @rgay is how she has an enemy, a person whose stumbles and bad days delight her. As near as I can tell, this person has no idea Gay feels this way. She is implacable, silent, feeding on this.

It's glorious.

As I have mentioned before, there is a school administrator who did Kid dirt oh, three years ago. She and I are not done.

She and I will never be done.

To the degree that I think about her, I am only concerned that like all of us, she may be trying to reframe the memory.

None of us are bad guys in our own grand narratives; I can see her small, weak mind rationalizing away every single hurtful, every short-sighted, every incompetent decision she did that year.

"I was doing my best," she might be thinking.

At a time and location of my choosing, she will get an email from me reminding her that yes, that was her best.

Which is why she should never think about holding authority ever again.

I'll take the time to really unpack her flaws.

I smile blandly as I plan this.

But this woman is not my enemy.

I think of her more as an infection which briefly ravaged my familiar bloodstream and my reaching out to her as nothing more than an IV of antibiotics to save some future potential patients.

She is a danger to teens, but she's not an enemy.

I have an enemy. In fact, I have had the same enemy since I was in my teens and just thinking about her feels me with comforting irritation.

God, she's annoying. We've had similar but not identical careers: when she succeeds, I seethe; she fails and I smile privately.

I recently heard her on a podcast (no, you won't figure it out, the podcast is years old) and was pleased to note she's still baselessly full of herself. As it so happens, years ago a friend of mine worked with her brother.

"He was a middle-management suck-up," she reported.

"Tell me more," I whispered, like a child.

"He isn't nearly as smart as he thinks he is," my friend added and I nearly had to sit down, I was so overcome with some complex emotion the Germans undoubtedly have a word for.

"You should let this go, Quinn."

Why?

This person has become my human junk drawer, the place where I park all of my more awkward emotions, my half-dead batteries of freelance contractor rage, the Thai menus of my pettiness. The rest of my psyche remains clean and orderly because of my sworn enemy.

Los Angeles is both large and small; I have every reason to assume we'll meet again. I'm not worried. She could have read this and she'd still have no idea that she is my sworn enemy.

She may be reading this now.

You know I don't mean you.

Or do I.

And now, it's your turn.

Do you have a sworn enemy? Do you enjoy it? Tell us about them and what makes them so ghastly; we will agree that they are terrible people.

And now, THE AD! If you like these Small Stories, can I coax you into helping to support them? I promise to agree about your sworn enemy, even if it's me.

Especially if it's me. https://www.patreon.com/user?u=4846197