Beautiful pixie girl who worked checkouts at the supermarket where I collected trolleys. All of us casuals talked about her, but only one, the handsomest, most confident lad among us, ever had the courage to ask her out.

Ten years pass. I'm visiting my home town from interstate. I see him in the same supermarket. He looks old, haggard, haunted. Beside him is a pudgy sour-faced mound of resentment crammed into a threadbare track suit. Three screeching goblins orbit her closely, the occasional escape thwarted by a bellowed command to "GET BACK HERE YOU LITTLE SHIT!" Like a wax sculpture left too near the heater, I can see the faintest hint of the pixie in her swollen, dulled expression.

I shudder, pay for my diet coke, give the pretty checkout girl my best encouraging smile/warning glance and flee. Bullet dodged.