I can’t find it anywhere, not under the furniture, nowhere. On my hands and knees, I look up, around, to see if, in some way, it slid across the floor and ended up somewhere strange. I look toward the sliding glass balcony doors. The light coming in from the corridor outside mingles with the glow of appliance clocks in the stale air. With the darkening of the sky, the glass doors are beginning to reflect the room. In that reflection I see only the bare, anonymous furniture, the unlived-in kitchen and dinette area. The reflected bookcase is empty. The closet by the front door stands open, the post inside is a pale line in the dark, and there are no clothes hangers on it, no clothing, no boxes on the shelf above, no jumble of shoes on the floor. My jacket is gone from its hook by the door. My keys are not on the table. I fix my gaze on the spot where they should be, where I know I’ve just set them down, with the memory of the clink they made against the tabletop.

I know that my image must be there, in the center of the glass doors. My image, superimposed on the balcony, on all fours, my head thrust back against my shoulders, my face staring stupidly out over my splayed hands, searching for the book. The image must be there: a haggard, frightened man on hands and knees, down on the floor to look for an old childhood copy of The Purlieus—not a figure bent over, only to stand again when they have the likeness of the dead, the dead, but my gaze stays riveted to the spot on the table where my keys are not, because I am afraid, so afraid to know that what’s reflected in that polished glass, after all, is an apartment for rent, untenanted, long empty, and where I should be, there will be only a space—the bare floor between the bookcase and the sofa.

Saccade

Saccade