The Unremarkable Morning That Contains Everything You wake before the alarm, which means the anxiety got there first. The coffee maker runs its small domestic

The Laboratory of Desire You are forty-three years old and you have not been touched in eight months. Not because you are monstrous, not because

The Man in the Room You pick up the book because someone left it on a table, or because the cover was ugly in an

The Stage as a Trap You are sitting in a theatre in Berlin, 1927, and something is wrong. The lights have not dimmed in the

The Audience Applauds Its Own Corruption You are laughing. The man on stage has just ordered a murder with the same casual tone one uses

The Body Before the Page You are at a dinner party in Paris, sometime in the 1880s, and the chandelier above the table costs more

The Mirror You Cannot Put Down You are at the wrong table and you know it. The wine being poured is better than anything you

The Body on the Beach You are standing at the edge of something, though you do not yet know what it is. The water is

The Bus That Left Without Its Passenger The bus is already moving when the body hits the ground. That detail — the indifference of the

The Weight of Sicily You are standing in a Sicilian piazza in 1950, and the heat is not weather — it is argument. The stones

The Supermarket as Cathedral You walk into the supermarket with a list. Three items, maybe four. You have already decided what you need, or so

The Man in the Showroom You walk into the showroom already defeated. You tell yourself you came to look, maybe compare, possibly leave without signing