Lost in Translation, Found by Someone Else

I remember it like it was last night. Scarlett Johansson in her underwear on a window ledge high up in a Tokyo hotel, looking out over the blinking city, Squarepusher’s "Tommib" coming through somewhere in the background, transforming the scene into something I couldn’t name. I just wanted to sit next to her. Look at the same rooftops. Hold her hand.

But I was too late. We were all too late. A French journalist named Romain Dauriac, apparently, arrived at exactly the right moment—because he’s the one who got her pregnant. Yes. The 29-year-old is expecting. Another once-in-a-generation woman reproducing entirely without my involvement, which is obviously the correct way to read this news.

What does it mean for the rest of us? That we’re doing something wrong. That this grey Tuesday should be observed in black, out of respect for what we’ve lost. I’m happy for Scarlett—the rational part of me genuinely is—but underneath that sits a small persistent ache, a why him, why not me, which I know is absurd and feel anyway. The hope doesn’t die, it just relocates. Jennifer Lawrence, I’m looking at you now. May the best man win.