The sky outside was a cloud, a metaphor or simile, a repository of all worldly files but mine. All the windows were on the same channel. Oscillating rain. Let lightning describe itself, and let thunder be its dialogue.

I had this superstition—never sit directly under the chandelier. No walls would ever be white again, next to or behind the whiteness of blank .docs. No silence would ever be as silent as the sibilance between .recs. It’s bizarre that this flat doesn’t have a fireplace, but I might’ve noted that already—pressing Ctrl+F would find that out, I keep pressing my sinuses instead.

If you think this is procrastinating, think again—because I also had the sensation of spyquip, and went about searching its concealments. In the tall thin coiled basketry that reminded me of Rach and the stumpy canopic jarlets that recalled me to Lana. In the sepia clock, the cameras and mics eloigned behind its escapement. In the small little Mongoloid trees, which if they weren’t themselves recording devices were either dead or dying.

Going for a refill of ice, or a light from the burners, trying to block it all out—the kitchen. All that tile and stainless steel was just a rash of prepackaged foodstuffs in and out of prepackaging. The floating task station and chopblock, the handles of the freezer/fridge, the knobs of the range, were flavored with ketchup, mustard, mayo from teethslit packets. The double trough sinks cradled an afterbirth of takeout goulash, backsplashed even to the pot/pan rack. A sponge had been rended, which bothers, because I don’t recall ever doing the dishes. A bite of the sponge was stuck to the wall.

Going to the bathroom was to navigate the McDonald’s takeout sacks I’d intended to take out, börek and wurst wraps, polystyrene bivalves of dumplings, cardboard pails clotted with chiliflecked stirfry. €2 coins have a silver coating, a creamy gold center, €1 coins have a gold coating, a creamy silver center. Both feature maps of borderless Europe. Just desserts. Toiletpaper was wadded with all the laundry I wasn’t doing. Tiny green hemorrhoids of toothpaste were affixed to the mirror and sink. Toothbrush gagging the drain. Thank Christ I’d boosted towels from the Khaleej, the Burj. No extra set of sheets has been provided. I haven’t accounted for the bedroom just yet, that Charlemagne deathbed perfect for rugmunching and with a canopy so high no cumshot would ever reach it.

\

I’ve been realizing only lately what I’ve lost. I used to just sit in a chair at a desk and search myself up and suddenly I’d be sitting in a certain type of chair at a certain type of desk, on a certain date, at a certain time, and at certain coordinates, with a certain weather forecast outside. Those days are over, though, those days and their access I’ve been withdrawing from gradually, groggily, like from an addiction, a relationship. I’ve been realizing only lately the exact precise upholstery of my ignorance. Everything creaks. Especially in the dark, the dark trafficless silence—everything creaks, internally.

How perverse is it that thinking of Rach, with her fly’s memory, consoles me?—how perverse that the only thing that calms me down is thinking of her in the same situation, unable to handle it, going insane? Her pda had this app that by the time I’ll be finished with this job, finished with this thought, will already be outdated, outmoded—by the very thought that it might be, it is. She’d hold her pda out in front of her like a cleaver, and click to camera a pic or vid or to record an audio snippet, and by that alone the app would tell her what it is, or was, which intel she’d then use to preempt me, test me, correct me when she suspected I was guessing, when she suspected I was lying in the hopes of appearing better or smarter or sexier: wondering by the reservoir, “What kind of dog is that, sniffing around?” Click, “A Pomeranian.” Wandering on Riverside Drive, “What kind of cat is that, grooming in the window?” Click, “A Siamese.” That woman ironing is La repasseuse by Picasso, and that’s a Morandi, I told her at the Guggenheim, at MoMA, and I was correct, but then later I called a Dix a Grosz or a Grosz a Dix and she checked and was irate—I told her the cab radio was playing September Song, composed by Kurt Weill, lyrics by (but everyone forgets lyricists), and she checked and yelled that it was James Brown, but then I yelled how it was a cover version, and though the app agreed she never apologized: “I wouldn’t have to do this,” she said, “if your confidence wasn’t such bullshit.”

\

A memory, unsubstantiated, inherently “unsubstantiatable” (is that a word? what site can prove it’s not?). The first time Rach dragged me to psych, to Dr. Meany’s office, I spent the entire sessh inspecting the office, telling myself that its decoration would tell me everything I needed to know about him or perhaps would tell me nothing I needed to know because he too must have had this thought and decorated accordingly, which, were that the case, would tell me everything. I’d get the same intelligence from his wearables. His wordchoices.

Another memory. Once I arrived early, or late, on a Monday but the appointment was for Friday—rather it wasn’t an appointment with Meany but with one of the fertility doctors, though he was out, his receptionist was out, and I was all alone amid the indirect tracklighting and minimal tulips, and snooped. Or I tried to. The cabinets wouldn’t budge—they were all childproofed, or adultproofed, they were proofed against adults who wanted children, proofed against adults who were acting like the children they didn’t want to have (the greatest breakthrough I’ve ever had).

\

I’d forgotten just how much of myself I’d outsourced, offshored, externalized. To Rach and Lana, to Moms. Externalized online. I’ve become so reliant.

It’s as if I’d presumed there would always be some woman or mother around, if not then some dusty storeroom in Ridgewood or even just a Jersey of unlimited storage that would hold everything for me, that would safekeep and recall me, so that no matter how far I’d go or how long I’d be gone, and no matter how many people I’d ghost, my own being or inborn self, who I was supposed to be, not who I was, would always be secure, if only in another’s sense of how they’ve been frustrated, disappointed, or betrayed by me.

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From: madamimadam@tetmail.com

To: jcomphen@aol.com

Fri, Sept 30, 2011, 10:24 AM

RidgeWood

We’ve been indated with rehearsals and gym and to have to deal with this I’m insensed but also pity you. Still we have had no response besides your agency’s assistant, Daniel Maleksen, finally reaching out to me to state (in writing) (email) that because he hasn’t been able to contact you if we were serious on the office front he’d have to hold onto your computer, though it’s Rach’s computer, but being over four years old it might as well be dead to her.

We are working to meet up.

You’re lucky that tomorrow 10/1 is a Saturday—Shabbos Shuvah, or Atonement—and that today I had no time to deal with this or Bob Onders granted us the last—the last—extension.

So if you have any interest whatsoever in salvaging your office on terms that are your own you must get in touch now immediately.

We have also had to take issue with the Amex. This is either between us or between our laywers and you and the fraud department unless you can admit it and be absolutely honest. Rach’s Amex has had a number of interesting charges recently that have only recently come to our attention, which none of the charges we have made. Rach does not remember ever having given you this card (copy of your own) and her own card she has in her wallet. But the fraud department has stupulated that a card for that account HERS WAS ISSUED IN YOUR NAME on 4/29/11 and mailed to you not at the billing address I’m writing from but to you c/o your office. I was activated on 5/4/11 for a charge so negible we must have missed the statement at the time, which would be June, for Amazon.com, who would not conform or deny or eithr turn over an account or shipping destination unless the charge was contested in which case they would but directly to Amex. We are guessing books. And you. And this is unconsciousable that you would commit fraud like this but we are “hoping for the best” even after a period of no activity besides Rach’s own legitimate purchases how it was lately brought to our attention (the account has since been canceled).