He blinked. He was holding my laptop like a phone book or a DVD player or some other obsolescent thing. I reached out and took it from him. Did he not understand? That it would no longer be my computer but a new computer altogether? That he was casually trying to offer me a new life to replace my old one? And then, in the most remarkable gesture, Patrick touched my shoulder. He scrunched his mouth in sympathy and then removed his hand. He said something else, but I was still lost in that moment. I wondered if he was used to touching people’s shoulders. He seemed to have perfected it. I suppose he was in a grief-filled line of work. Or was that a unique moment that had passed between us? Was he now feeling embarrassed about it? The moment his hand touched my shoulder my hatred for him dissipated. I felt, for the first time, that we were truly in this together. Like two parents mourning a child.

I thanked him and walked out. After a few steps I realized I hadn’t asked about payment, but it would have felt almost grotesque for him to have run out of the shop asking for it, especially after what had just passed between us. Perhaps he figured I had already paid the ultimate price. I cradled the laptop in my arms through the parking lot, laid it on the passenger seat, walked around to my side, climbed in, and sat there for a long while. I felt like furled-up bits of eraser skin on a blank page. Six years. My young adulthood.

I started driving. Where was I going? Home? And then what? What would I do with the rest of my life? I looked down at the laptop. It felt wrong for it to still be in my possession. Like it should have been turned over to the authorities. Like the corpse of a close friend. A lover. I suddenly felt small and stupid. Boring. Like someone’s irritating child trying to make conversation at a dinner party. I no longer had anything of value to contribute. No art, no ideas. At red lights I felt the other drivers’ eyes peering into my car, staring down at the dead thing in the passenger seat, but I ignored them. I ferried it around all day, to two other computer stores. Each time I carried it in my arms to the counter; each time the diagnosis was the same. I drove home and buried it in the basement, in the graveyard of old appliances, of useless electronics too expensive to throw out.