The morning's first call to prayer from the mosque on the corner came in through the screen where I’d left the window cracked and mixed with my phone alarm. I languished in the few moments where I wasn’t yet anybody. Then came the parts of myself, the articulable variables that made up my life. I was halfway through Moby Dick. I worked. I had a job I had to get ready for, and then I had to get there. To the preschool, the children. It wasn’t so easy. The...
Two weeks after his father killed himself, Paul moved out of his parents’ house. Paul had spent his entire life sleeping in the same bed, staring up at the same water stain on the ceiling, an oblique shape that reminded him of textbook diagrams of a woman’s reproductive organs. He had masturbated in that bed for the first time when he was twelve. He was still masturbating in it at thirty-four. That was the...
After getting dumped, I was advised to take up a hobby by people who loved me and cared for me and thought they were better than me.
In order to get credit from my biggest sister and verify, with receipt, that I’d actually attempted her suggestion, I went to one organized sporting event where everyone left grayed with sweat and we all went to a shitty sports bar happy hour to drink back the calories...
