Surviving the day was like threading a needle. Not actually surviving, Howard explained to Violet. His existence wasn’t in question. He loved certain pleasures in life and was at any rate far too vigorous in his cowardice to ever consider ending things. No: he meant surviving in the sense of drawing nutrition from what was around him, in the sense of advancing the case of what it meant to be in the world. Violet wasn’t listening. She was thinking about how she had heard this same speech nearly every day for the past year. She had heard it in the car and in the park, in restaurants and in bed. It was in her head like sand in clothes after a visit to the beach, preventing her from feeling anything but irritated. She was watching a bird on a branch and wishing she was married to the bird instead. She would lavish kisses on its beak. When it shed a feather, she would wear it proudly in her hair. And she would dream of it, deeply, commingling sexual and spiritual satisfaction. But she had watched too keenly. She had been sensed. The bird, not wanting to lead her on, beat its wings and cut a path through the sky.
©2020 Ben Greenman/Stupid Ideas
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