was because of a pair of monkeys.
So.
She asked me if I was ready to meet her friend and to see her apartment, and I said, yes.
We had, now, definitively it seemed, reached the period of the end of the warm weather and the beginning of the cold, and it would be some time, if ever, before we could comfortably recommence our meetings in the park. This is what I thought as we walked along and talked about various words and objects, though also, and I suppose this was a function of the changes that were in the process right those seconds of occurring, about other things.
She was asking me was I interested.
In what? I said.
She told me what it was.
I said I was, then I didn’t say anything for a moment, then I said, yes, definitely.
At times, you see, after I was no longer hearing it, I was still hearing it—I am still hearing it—her voice, in a slight but quite crystalline echo, perfectly. This was distracting, and, when it was happening, often caused her to wonder aloud about what I was thinking.
We had not yet developed a vocabulary that could accommodate, in this line, any kind of elaboration.
I’m not quite sure, I would say.
And she wouldn’t say anything.
Then we arrived at her apartment. I have already mentioned the impossible number of shelves that coexisted in those few rooms. It was a dizzying spectacle, one no doubt exacerbated by the number of objects those shelves supported. Obviously, the number of objects, of which there were many, many per shelf, must, in real terms, have far exceeded the number of shelves, but in my mind, strangely it does not. In my mind, strangely, there are more shelves than objects, and, accurate or not, this was the case right from the start.
Deau was not there. She had left a note. In which, in a large, round hand, she explained that she had just popped out. I have never been able to subtract that large, round “popped” from my impression of Deau, though I admit I haven’t tried.
Her apartment. There was the stapler, in its place, and there was a shiny bright hole puncher, much like the one belonging to my downstairs neighbor, and there was an electric pencil sharpener, not plugged in, and there was a pyramid composed of twenty perfectly white rectangular erasers. In the kitchen, on one of the shelves that had not yet been filled but that would soon be, sat the ricer, next to a small blue colander, next to a short stack of red condiment dishes, next to a white crock pot, slightly cracked at the rim, next to a large green bowl.
More.
There was a lot more.
I told her I was impressed by the number of objects she had accumulated.
She told me to come over to the bed.
Eventually, Deau popped back in.
It was a very large apartment and despite the proliferation of shelves and objects we all, once the two of us had dressed, sat at a great distance from each other.
Hello, Deau called across the room to me.
Hello, I called back.
One of my unpleasant dreams involves the inadequacy of my voice to carry across even short distances, and while perhaps you wouldn’t think that was much of a dream, I can assure you that it is quite effective.
I forget at which point we moved our chairs closer and had drinks.
Doing so was Deau’s suggestion.
This is slightly stupid, she said.
Deau, coincidentally, was about to begin a tour of some kind, and she was going to begin it in the next place she went, this first place being a preliminary stop, connected to, but not a part of, she said, her tour. I told her that my friend, John, was also on a tour, but that he had long since gotten it started, and that this was by no means a preliminary stop, and that it seemed to be doing him worlds of good.
Who is your friend John? said Deau.
I looked at her.
She looked a little like her handwriting.
If her handwriting had also been slightly, perhaps, serrated.
Hmmm, I thought.
Just exactly what kind of a tour are we talking about, Deau? I considered asking her, only it was a question I
So.
She asked me if I was ready to meet her friend and to see her apartment, and I said, yes.
We had, now, definitively it seemed, reached the period of the end of the warm weather and the beginning of the cold, and it would be some time, if ever, before we could comfortably recommence our meetings in the park. This is what I thought as we walked along and talked about various words and objects, though also, and I suppose this was a function of the changes that were in the process right those seconds of occurring, about other things.
She was asking me was I interested.
In what? I said.
She told me what it was.
I said I was, then I didn’t say anything for a moment, then I said, yes, definitely.
At times, you see, after I was no longer hearing it, I was still hearing it—I am still hearing it—her voice, in a slight but quite crystalline echo, perfectly. This was distracting, and, when it was happening, often caused her to wonder aloud about what I was thinking.
We had not yet developed a vocabulary that could accommodate, in this line, any kind of elaboration.
I’m not quite sure, I would say.
And she wouldn’t say anything.
Then we arrived at her apartment. I have already mentioned the impossible number of shelves that coexisted in those few rooms. It was a dizzying spectacle, one no doubt exacerbated by the number of objects those shelves supported. Obviously, the number of objects, of which there were many, many per shelf, must, in real terms, have far exceeded the number of shelves, but in my mind, strangely it does not. In my mind, strangely, there are more shelves than objects, and, accurate or not, this was the case right from the start.
Deau was not there. She had left a note. In which, in a large, round hand, she explained that she had just popped out. I have never been able to subtract that large, round “popped” from my impression of Deau, though I admit I haven’t tried.
Her apartment. There was the stapler, in its place, and there was a shiny bright hole puncher, much like the one belonging to my downstairs neighbor, and there was an electric pencil sharpener, not plugged in, and there was a pyramid composed of twenty perfectly white rectangular erasers. In the kitchen, on one of the shelves that had not yet been filled but that would soon be, sat the ricer, next to a small blue colander, next to a short stack of red condiment dishes, next to a white crock pot, slightly cracked at the rim, next to a large green bowl.
More.
There was a lot more.
I told her I was impressed by the number of objects she had accumulated.
She told me to come over to the bed.
Eventually, Deau popped back in.
It was a very large apartment and despite the proliferation of shelves and objects we all, once the two of us had dressed, sat at a great distance from each other.
Hello, Deau called across the room to me.
Hello, I called back.
One of my unpleasant dreams involves the inadequacy of my voice to carry across even short distances, and while perhaps you wouldn’t think that was much of a dream, I can assure you that it is quite effective.
I forget at which point we moved our chairs closer and had drinks.
Doing so was Deau’s suggestion.
This is slightly stupid, she said.
Deau, coincidentally, was about to begin a tour of some kind, and she was going to begin it in the next place she went, this first place being a preliminary stop, connected to, but not a part of, she said, her tour. I told her that my friend, John, was also on a tour, but that he had long since gotten it started, and that this was by no means a preliminary stop, and that it seemed to be doing him worlds of good.
Who is your friend John? said Deau.
I looked at her.
She looked a little like her handwriting.
If her handwriting had also been slightly, perhaps, serrated.
Hmmm, I thought.
Just exactly what kind of a tour are we talking about, Deau? I considered asking her, only it was a question I
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