the twenty-fifth
PEACH FUZZ
I am ten (my cousin eight) when I first beat him at Brawl, with a bubblegum-pink princess who plucks turnips and yells ‘I-ca-CHA! as she strikes with her hipbone. I am ten when I pick her ironically (because she is pink, and pretty) and eleven when I change to orange (because blonde becomes dumb) and fifteen when I study the skillset (ears pierced, post-ironically), and it is 03:15 and I am twenty-two (under-covers, summer vacation) when the internet gospel anoints her an A-rank fighter.
I am twenty when I realise I don’t know how else to play -
- just that this alone is natural.
I am ten (my cousin eight) when I last beat him at Smash, and I remember the look of awe as I draw Link to sleep, and a sky still sweet with peaches.
Katherine Knight is a recent Classics grad and librarian living in Cambridge, UK. She is a columnist at The Daily Drunk Mag and hides at @codaevermore.
