Jerry stepped back, away from her for a moment and brought his eyes up to a neutral part of her face, below her eyes. In her face there was nothing: not the slightest movement of her lips, not the barest hint of breathing about her nose, not the least movement of her chin. Jerry was not accustomed to this; there was no passion and it frightened him. He considered her and he considered the absence of passion in her face. He also considered what possibly waited for him on the other side of twenty-two. Then he smiled, still uncomfortable but confident that he had won something. “What a silly bitch you are,” he said. “What a real silly bitch you are.”

Then he touched her and she did not resist.

“BETWEEN MY EYES I SEE three people and they are all unhappy. Why?”

“Perhaps it is because they are alive. Perhaps it is because they once were. Perhaps it is because they have to be. I do not know.”

“But all around them is the smell of something dead and yet each of them is with someone. Why then are they unhappy?”

“Perhaps they have found a better way to be.”

“But is this way better?”

“I do not know.”

“Then what have we gained from seeing all this?”

“Nothing.”

“Then what have they gained from doing all this?”

“Nothing.”

“Then what will they feel tomorrow and the next day?”

“Nothing.”

“But if this is all there is, what is left of life and why are we alive?”

About the Author

JAMES ALAN McPHERSON was the first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. A MacArthur Fellow and American Academy of Arts and Sciences inductee, McPherson was born in Savannah, Georgia. He was a graduate of Harvard Law School and held an MFA from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he later taught for thirty-five years. In a writing career that spanned forty years, McPherson was a contributor to publications, including The Atlantic, Esquire, and Playboy, and was an editor of Ploughshares and DoubleTake magazine. McPherson’s works include the short story collection Elbow Room and two works of nonfiction, A Region Not Home and Crabcakes. He died in Iowa City in 2016.

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