3607.

One of his dogs had become a saber-toothed dachshund.

3606.

The apartment smelled of potatoes, though he'd no idea why.

3605.

He warmed himself with a cold blanket.

3604.

A half tin of sprats kept him moving into the night.

3603.

He purred as he entered his bed.

3602.

His shower smelled deeply of water.

3601.

He sat on the toilet and produced only blood.

3600.

What comforted him most was dread.

3599.

He might have stayed awake for the music, because he could not understand the language of its words.

3598.

Sleep was always a possibility, never a certainty.

3597.

Maybe he could wait for it, he thought, before wondering if he were he.

3596.

He could think of nothing else to do.

3595.

The time was ripe or right—he didn't know which.

3594.

The cloud was the shape of Iberia, but attached to no continent.

3593.

He didn't know if he had been buffeted or buffeted by the wind.

3492.

Sense, he thought, is pungent.

3491.

He knew it was a wheat penny before he turned it over.

3490.

He had been dreaming that he was no longer dreaming.

3489.

He found his dog outside in the dark and the rain and the nasturtiums.

3488.

He accidentally smelled the perfume on the inside of his wrist and believed he could then sleep.

3487.

There is, he thought, nothing else to do, even if something left to.

3486.

“It takes so long," he lamented, silently, “It takes so long.”

3485.

The rain didn't fall on him, yet it still rained.

3484.

He knew it wouldn't happen.

3483.

To the poet, he wrote, “You won't like the poems. I write to my own esthetic, no-one else's. And I really don't believe in caring. All people are undependable at caring, myself included. I hold no hope or expectation of such.”

3482.

The drugs wouldn't allow him to cry.

3481.

“If never,” he wished.

3480.

“Love your father,” he said, wasting his thought.

3479.

He thought, “ ,” and he said, “ .”

3478.

He read until some great turning had almost extinguished the light around him.

3477.

He sniffed the sweet scent of sandalwood on his wrists.

3476.

The wind blew the scent of his growing oregano over him.

3475.

He heard no music in the night.

3474.

He could still see, he could still walk, he could still feel, no matter how little of him were left.

3473.

He wanted to take in his right hand the left breast of the woman who asked him, “Any change?” and kiss her fully, before holding her beautiful face in his hands and saying to her, “Somebody somewhere loves you, and I wish it were me.”

3472.

As he passed each woman on the street, he whispered, “Beautiful," so quietly she could not hear it.

3471.

The stairwell smelled of honey and echoed with each of his steps.

3470.

He dreamed all night of strange insects that infiltrates people's bodies and destroyed civilization; after he awoke he turned on the shower, and the stream of water flushed a clump of hair off the drain catch, but when he picked up the clump the million hairy legs of a centipede pulsed and he dropped the creature (he had forgotten he was bald).

3469.

He thought only about the plastic blue small hamper.

3468.

He ate a purple plum, he ate a red plum, he ate a yellow plum, he ate an apricot.

3467.

No, his daughter had not sent him a postcard as well, because he was really no longer her father, because he didn't actually write her a letter every day she lived outside of the country, because he did not matter anymore, because he wasn't worth the cost.

3466.

He wondered if his daughter had sent him a postcard as well.

3465.

He awoke that morning with a sunburned neck and a blister on the ball of each foot.

3464.

He had kept remembering the event: He asked the little girl why she was not as tall as the adults around her, and she answered that it was because she was small, so he asked, "Isn't that answer a bit tautological?"

3463.

The day before, he had awoken with a gummy eye and blurry vision, the corner of his eye swollen open to create the illusion of a rough tear and cradling a tear within it.

3462.

He recognized the mulberries first by the purple mottling of the sidewalk.

3461.

The next two mulberries had not borne any fruit.

3460.

A block later, he found another one, even sweeter.

3459.

He could reach, with both feet flat on the ground, just high enough to pick and taste a mulberry: sweet, insipid, childhood.

3458.

That morning he had had dreams about his grandchildren, none of which had ever been born.

3457.

His golden dog was a saber-toothed dachshund, at least had been for the preceding month.

3456.

Maybe their song should not have been one by David Ruffin.

3455.

By the time he made it to bed, the birds were beginning to awake and sing.

3454.

A moth the color of darkness flew through the only source of light and into his face before receding clumsily back into that darkness.

3453.

He could not find his software and had to continue typing with his broken hands.

3452.

He was the daring one.

3451.

He was afraid he had awoken.

3450.

He prepared to follow that lane.

3449.

He found the box under his bed and opened it to find a scurrying of dozens of tiny tan spiders, against which he had meant no harm.

3448.

He had never recalled this happening before: the scent of coconut, just after eating food with coconut milk, coming out of him as the scent of his urine.

3447.

There was no reason to.