Ema makes a presentation for her husband

01 — Reasons

The coat was faux chinchilla, hand-made in a vegan atelier in Kaunas, and it cost what a good coat costs. Ema wanted it. Her husband, who has spent thirty years in meetings, wanted reasons. “Fine,” said Ema, and did the one thing he could not refuse: she booked the living room for a presentation.

02 — Eight slides, then five

The machine made eight slides in about a minute, which was impressive, and three of them were nonsense, which was not. Every heading sounded like a bank explaining a fee. Ema cut it to five and rewrote each line until it sounded like her — short, certain, slightly unfair. Nova approved slide four by sitting on the keyboard.

03 — Slide three

Slide three was one sentence on a white background, in tall letters, and Ema said nothing while it was on the screen. Her husband put down his coffee. He has put down his coffee like that twice in thirty years, and both times something expensive followed. “Next slide?” he asked. “There is no need,” said Ema.

04 — A coat you can touch

The atelier calls it a coat you can touch, and everyone did. Her husband came to the fitting and took a photograph “for the minutes”, which is the closest he comes to a compliment. Slide four, the one Nova had sat on, said only: zero animals, one afternoon. It was the only slide he asked to keep.