[1.1] [1.2] 1.3 [1.4] [TOC The Six Degrees Stories]
He has given over the whole afternoon and most of the morning to suppositions about himself: why he wore a wool sweater on an October day in paradise? why the waitress at Mama’s Café brought him two soft-boiled eggs and toast with no butter, exactly what he would have ordered if allowed to do so, without a word from him? why, when the young woman came to him naked and began to slip his glasses from his face, he stayed her hand, but made love with her nonetheless, glasses on? why he couldn’t remember his nephew’s name or what started the argument with his sister that effectively ended their twice a year phone conversations at least a decade earlier? why he could remember the name, Amelia, but not her face, at least not with any distinction?He cannot, in this moment, swear to the name of the young woman with whom he had shared intimate physical contact that very morning. He’d felt breakable with her, as if his ribcage might suddenly turn into dust. Was it her age? her youth? She couldn’t be much older than his nephew? mid-twenties? younger? Was it his age? his frail stature? Ah, but he isn’t so very thin. He runs everyday. He is fit, very fit, for a man approaching seventy. And the young woman, hadn’t she made all the appropriate sounds? On the table: a half bottle of chardonnay and his half-empty glass, an abalone ashtray filled with nothing but pastel colors washing into one another, all a little bit gray, all a little bit luminous in the weak shaft of light shining out from the open window between the blue shutters. He refills his glass, sets the bottle back down, gently, without a sound of glass touching glass. [word count 308] [more . . . ]
