NORMAL

Content Warnings: Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

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Kate knows that germs can’t really jump off walls, tables, or other people, landing on her sleeve then seeping through her shirt, onto her skin, multiplying to spread down to her hands and across her face, risking infection, illness, hospitalisation, death, so she’d never finish writing her book and who would look after her cat? But germs can’t jump off tables, so she needs to ignore her OCD, and act normal, and sit down, and don’t touch anything, and just say…

     ‘Hi, I’m Kate.’  

     Her Tinder date looks up and smiles.

     ‘Hi! I’m Riley.’

     Riley stands to shake Kate’s hand.

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Steph Amir: 

Steph Amir has a background in public policy and research and is currently a Writeability Fellow at Writers Victoria. Her creative work has been published internationally in print and online; most recently in Snowflake Magazine, Ghost Girls, Phantom Kangaroo and Burrow.  She lives in Melbourne, Australia, and tweets from @steph_kaymir.