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From my journal, 1994, a bad year for love.

Thanks for working on my resume for eight hours, she said. I didn’t do it so that you would drive me to the bus station, I said. Nor it is why I have agreed to drive you, she said. They why are you? I should have said right then, only I would never say such a thing.

What we did was talk, and there was a time when I became acutely conscious of this, that we were two animals conversing. I was aware too that I did not want to kiss her particularly, so that is what I did: not kiss her.

I haven’t said her name. For some reason I’ve avoided it. Calling her her feels best. She, her. And the reason, I see it now, is that she is one of many over time. A procession. All of whom are the same, in a sense, the same procession. Like in G’s play. (This is for you now, this explanation. You who are not reading this.) The play had two characters played by six actors. When a character walked off stage and returned, that character was now played by a new actor. Seamlessly. And in time the original actors came back playing the opposite characters. Not that it mattered half as much as the giant chair over there that nobody noticed.

A man signs a shovel and so he digs.

Oblivio: Stories and such by Michael Barrish