TAKE V, T, & I (TOOK, TAKEN, -KABLE) • by Oonah V Joslin

The answer was extremely complex and I was a bit slow on the up-take or she was slow on the in-take. Anyway, my take on it was that there were many general uses of the word but that it was also used with certain objects and of certain subjects and in special combinations to convey specific meanings. In fact it is very easy to be taken in, given the frequent usage of the word, into thinking it is simple. I never thought to ask why she wanted to know…

The poor girl was alone in a foreign country in an arranged marriage where her husband beat her. What was I supposed to do?

Anyway, it is now apparent that I’m not a very good teacher because when she told Social Services she’d been taken in by me, they believed her to mean I had duped her in some way when in fact I’d just provided her temporary lodgings. Now they’re taking my life slowly to bits in the firm belief that I am engaged in some dodgy immigration deals to do with sex trafficking, and she is facing deportation unless she goes back to her abusive spouse.


Oonah V Joslin is Managing Editor at Every Day Poets. Credits include 3 Micro Horror prizes, an honorable mention in The binnacles Shorts Poetry comp 2009, Inclusion in several anthologies, A Man of Few Words, The Best of Every Day Fiction 2008 and Toe Tags. She can be found at Bewildering Stories, Static Movement, The Shine Journal, A View From Here, The Ranfurly Review and many other places. The list gets updated on this site and on Facebook. Oonah’s ambition is to have a book published.

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