As soon as he got back, Ben made me make an appointment to get this mole on my arm checked. I stood there in my dingy bra and Target underwear while the doctor examined me. He was well groomed with a plume of silver-gray hair and an unplaceable European accent. He held a magnifying glass up to my skin. Described every mark on my body one by one: Exceedingly unlikely to be cancerous! Exceedingly unlikely to be cancerous!
He had a melodious voice. I wanted every day to be like this, to begin in shame and fear and end in glorious reassurance.
* * *
…
Do not believe that because you are a revolutionary you must feel sad.
* * *
…
Ben and I made a list of requirements for our doomstead: arable land, a water source, access to a train line, high on a hill. Are we on a hill for floods or defense? Both. I’ll build a moat, he said, then went on the internet to learn how to do it.
You must own small, unnoticeable items. For example, a generator is good, but 1,000 BIC lighters are better. A generator will attract attention if there’s any trouble, but 1,000 lighters are compact, cheap, and can always be traded.
“Wait, when did you take up smoking?” Ben says when he finds them in a drawer.
Something happened while he was away. He did the math, all the math, and now there’s a quote from Epictetus pinned above his desk.
You are not some disinterested bystander/Exert yourself.
* * *
…
In those disaster movies, the hero always says, “Trust me,” and the one who is about to die says, “Do I have a choice?”
“No.”
That’s what the hero says.
* * *
…
I take Eli to the playground. Someone walks past with his head down, swiping right, swiping left. The buildings look whitewashed in light. The air smells sweet. Diminishing radiance, but still some, I’d say.
I’ve changed my mind. You can have a child. It will be small and cat-eyed. It will never know the taste of meat.
Q: What is the difference between a disaster and an emergency?
A: A disaster is a sudden event that causes great damage or loss. An emergency is a situation in which normal operations cannot continue and immediate action is required so as to prevent a disaster.
What if we went for a walk, if we walked out into the streets?
It’s impossible.
It’s barely possible.
* * *
…
Sri Ramakrishna said, Do not seek illumination unless you seek it as a man whose hair is on fire seeks a pond.
* * *
…
It still comes back to me sometimes, the way the light came through those windows. The dust had a presence. At least if you stared at it long enough, it did.
The Unitarians never kneel. But I want to kneel. Later, I do at home by my bed. The oldest and best of prayers: Mercy.
* * *
…
I go to church with my mother. I pray fumblingly for strength, for grace. Sunlight pours through the windows. There’s that dust I remember. Soon it will be time to shake hands with those around me and speak to them. But I don’t know what is in their hearts. One of you will betray me, I think. But my mother is so happy I have come. She sits as close to me as she can. The minister speaks of the invisible and visible worlds, but not of how to tell the difference. An old white man in the next pew is the first to turn and reach for my hand.
Peace be with you.
And also with you.
* * *
…
Sylvia calls me. All that sky makes her more patient now when I talk about the mystics.
There’s that idea in the different traditions. Of the veil. What if we were to tear through it? (Welcome, say the ferns. We’ve been expecting you.)
“Of course, the world continues to end,” Sylvia says, then gets off the phone to water her garden.
* * *
…
If you think you are lost: beware bending the map. Don’t say maybe it was a pond, not a lake; maybe the stream flowed east, not west. Leave a trail as you go. Try to mark trees.
Paper ballots, paper ballots, everyone said, but I put the final card in a machine. There’s a bunch of us now milling around outside the building. Put your hackles up, I think.
Hello? Hello?
What is—
What is your emergency?
They say people who are lost will walk trancelike past their own search parties. Maybe I saw you. Maybe I passed you on my street. How will I know you? Trust me, you’ll say.
* * *
…
On the way home, the wind blows some newspapers down the street. There’s a man sleeping in a doorway and one comes and curls itself around his feet.
A visitor asked the old monks at Mount Athos what they did all day and was told: We have died and we are in love with everything.
* * *
…
We don’t know if it’s a new mouse or the old mouse. This is the fatal flaw of the have-a-heart trap, Ben’s sister says. Some use paint to mark each one. Fool me once, etc., etc. But they have not gotten to that point yet. When we house-sit for them, it falls to Ben to do the work. First with the neck breaking and then with the releasing. Three nights in a row now. We hear the mouse in the trap rattling. Ben gets out of bed, puts on his shoes, permits himself a sigh. I pull the covers up while he puts the trap on the passenger seat and then drives a mile down the dirt road to the big field. But the drive is awkward. Captor, captive. The moonlight through the windshield. No one talks, he says.
At night, the floorboards creak. Henry is pacing back and forth upstairs. He is trying to wear himself out or maybe he is trying to wear Iris out. Either is fine because nobody’s crying. He’s got his six-month sobriety chip now. He’s had these chips before, but he keeps this one in his wallet at least. In the past, he’s just let Eli play bodega with them.
The dentist gave me something so I won’t grind my teeth in my sleep. I consider putting it in, decide against it. My husband is under the covers reading a long book about an ancient war. He turns out the light, arranges the blankets so we’ll stay warm. The dog twitches her paws softly against the bed. Dreams of running, of other animals. I wake to the sound of gunshots. Walnuts on the roof, Ben says. The core delusion is that I am here and you are there.