“You need a drink.”

“Parsnips and carrots should emit an unexpected pungent burst…”

“It’s hardly unexpected if you expect it.”

“Nothing can prepare one for the delight.”

“But…you’d be a bit prepared…this would not be your first carrot.”

“The sensation of an Old-World carrot can’t be held in the memory. It’s too particular and animal. It’s a small delight, but one such delight builds on another to create one’s real life. Which is what I miss.”

“You miss feeling like an animal.”

“I miss smells. Leather and smoke. Primroses. Lily-of-the-valley.”

“You’re completely out of it. You and your simplicity and your crumbling walls.”

“Out of what?”

“In this century, simplicity’s for wealthy people. Who all think they’re not asking for much. Haven’t you clued in to the fact that only big shots get to have a crumbling wall made of real stone? The rest of us can’t even hope for plywood anymore. Do you even know what plywood is?”

“Of course.”

“Plywood is too good for us. We might get particleboard if we’re lucky.”

“Board made of particles?”

“Remember I told you to buy tins of solid white tuna, not chunk light or, God forbid, flaked?”

“You said flaked is the factory floor sweepings.”

“Good boy. Particleboard’s the wood version of that. It’s sawdust that has been reconstituted with glue and pressure to make extruded planks of building material.”

“That’s exactly the kind of thing I hate.”

“I know, but you seem to think people nowadays have a choice. You’re looking at it as an aesthetic failure because you have no clue about the cost per square foot. You don’t think about the cost per square foot of anything, do you?”

“Nothing could be farther from the truth.”

“Really?”

“I’ve always been aware of bills, and of paying them, and of the humiliation of asking my father and mother to help me make up for the shortfalls of a soldier’s pay….”

“For God’s sake, don’t start crying again. Maybe I am wrong. Maybe you’re not a privileged little dickhead. Maybe the soulless new world has drained all the flavour out of your parsnip. Or maybe the culprit is your own naturally occurring decrepitude. I mean, according to your own calculations, your taste buds are nearly three hundred years old.”

And so Sophie continually berates me, and I continue asking questions of her like an innocent child.

“What about the horrifying third circle, north among the warehouses? Do people live there?”

“What do you even know about that circle—you refuse to go.”

“And why are you so judgmental about the second circle right around our park? I like all the blue and red and gold doors. The spiral escaliers. The cupolas and wrought-iron railings.”

“Gentrification.”