chapter five

I told you I’d put you in a novel, but presumably you didn’t believe me. Or you didn’t care for novels. Whatever. You washed down a handful of crushed mixed pharmaceuticals with vodka while I was still on chapter three.

I’d always intended to get around to pinning you down on some of the details. You didn’t like to talk about yourself, which made you either a very difficult person to write about or a very easy one, depending on how much the author cared for verisimilitude.

I used to want everything to be as true as possible, even in fiction, so I had a notebook full of questions for you that I planned to strew carefully into our conversations at planned intervals.

Oh, your hatred of questions. Oh, your avoidance of answers.

I didn’t love you, you know. I suppose you knew.

Chapter four is longer than the first three put together. There is no chapter five.

wasps’ nest
deciding what to call
the poultice