My Year of Rest and Relaxation

She was beautiful, with all her nerves and all her complicated, circuitous feelings and contradictions and fears. <…>
“I love you,” I said.
“I love you, too.”

Everything about her seemed troublingly pornographic—her matte foundation, <…>. “Innovative solutions.” “Anatomy of workplace violence.” “Strong objectives.”

I called her on August 19 from the doorman’s cell phone. Despite all the sleep and forgetting, I still knew her number by heart, and recognized the date on the calendar as her birthday.

I got in the habit of buying a box of Corn Flakes from the Egyptians each morning. I fed the Corn Flakes in gentle handfuls to the squirrels in the park. I drank no coffee.

I was like a newborn animal.

I just had a dizzy spell.”

But by the end of May, I sensed that I was going to grow restless soon. A prediction.

I opened the fridge, stood in the yellow light, and chewed my piece of pizza.