Let me know if I even turned the stove off. Probably not. I just left. Gone as fast as I came. The little apartment with the walls of canned fighting and creaky bedsprings that were rhythmic, disembodied. Nothing could have kept me there for one more minute. In a way it felt like even the walls were cheating on me, waiting for me to walk out for a minute so that another could walk in and redecorate. The bathroom stayed innocent as it was tiled in white with everything permanent except the towels on the rack and the sample body washes lining the top rack. But my sheets came off, exposing the pale, bare flower design like some Italian landlady’s nightgown. Even the lamp that had stayed up late with me all those nights failed me today as it burned out, leaving me to paw under the bed in the dim, windowless room for abandoned quarters and magazines. The apartment needed to move on, to forget about me, to wake up the next day without the smell of defeat, regret, and missed chances. I opened up all of the windows and left the oscillating fan on the kitchen table, swaying back and forth and smiling in the studio while no one’s looking—like Stevie Wonder when everyone else breaks for lunch.

Labels: Novel