I'm always committing the sin I don't deserve. He thought and he walked barefoot to the bathroom. There was no one there to hear him piss. There was no one here and there was no one angry. No enemy, no beauty. No one who had memories of moments that vanished. No one with intricate remorse. No one that was alright with the way way things were. All afternoon a dove had been clanging itself against the window, trying to get inside. And in his own way he understood. Wanting to cross. Wanting that other world. There was the email from his daughter. There was the text from his ex-wife. There were the unstoked coals from the afternoon fire, dying out. And there was sperm in the tissue in the waste paper basket. And there were deer in the backyard. This was the vantage point. An identity that was failing him. We are nothing, he said to himself. We are, he repeat. Nothing. I am. It would get dark early. And you would hear the deer run away into the blackness. And you could hear the freight trains just two hundred yards away. And he would try to coerce his brain to answering that email, answering that text. Tomorrow Lewis was coming. To look at the bathroom sink on the second floor. There was something in the catch, but he didn't want to get figure it out himself. There was a time when he was handy. But why bother? Were these unwarranted emotions? He flicked a cigarette into the fireplace. He fondled the ham sandwich on the plate. He didn’t care for it. The ham sandwich. He hadn’t put much care into making it, that was the problem. He wasn’t unaware of the aimlessness of his life. It wasn't exactly senility yet, he wasn't old enough for that. But the sense of submitting. Of grinding, of losing steam. Of hesitating until you can't act anymore. Until you're reduced to relying on the momentum you had from years past. The momentum that would eventually succumb to gravity. Maybe he should make another pot of coffee in the Mr. Coffee Machine, he thought. His daughter drank coffee out of the French press. She thought the Mr. Coffee Machine he gave her for Christmas was perverse. Probably gave you cancer somehow. Maybe he had cancer. He'd had cancer once before. Prostate. Now there were uranium pellets between his testicles and his anus. He hated the fir trees in the backyard. He liked the smell of smoke. The day was weaving yellow all around him. Yellow gave way to black. I am the seasons, he thinks. November, December, January. Mud, dawn, mist, smoke. The dog was dead, it was buried in the backyard. He’d loved the dog. Our bodies communicate. He had written that morning to the woman he met online. Our bodies communicate like light. I still remember the curl of your hips, the sweep of your hair, exact, precise. The way you prepared your face, your scent. You know, maybe he's just imagining this, it's a fantasy. The night has begun. Any night. His wife lost her beauty early, he never forgave her. His daughter never had it, he never forgave her. I fill my glass again, I drink, I am conscious of the thought. This warmth and privacy of life inside the house. Radiance and heat, the coals in the fireplace almost gone. Stir them. We have become an impoverishment of things. Experience disintegrates. There's nothing binding or stable, all that's left is. Then. The quicksilver feeling. What do you think of the dress I sent you? He texts his daughter. For Christmas? Does it fit? Is it your style? I can take it back if you want. Just ship it. I'm going to wait for her to respond. He thinks. And by the time she does, he’s asleep.
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