Mr. N placed his palm upon the page, fingers stretching toward the corners. He closed his hand and slowly squeezed, concentrating on the quiet protests made by the crumpling paper. When the sheet, filled with lines of gray insects, now squashed, was balled up in the palm of his hand, he went to the bathroom and threw it in the wastebasket. He worried that if Miss Zahra happened to read what had just come out of him, it might make her afraid. Mr. N hadn’t realized how free he’d been before the woman developed an interest in what he was writing. Now he was weighed down, fettered by the image she had of him in her mind. He turned on the water in the sink and washed the pencil marks from his hands. He splashed cold water over his face as he resisted the appalling nausea still gathering in the pit of his stomach, fighting to keep it from blasting like a rocket out through his esophagus, his throat, his teeth. No, no, it’s alright now. He took the crumpled page out of the wastebasket and tore it into tiny pieces that he threw into the toilet bowl. It wasn’t long before felt his stomach muscles relax again. He could picture Miss Zahra coming back to him, smiling and reassuring. Mr. N looked into the mirror, meeting his own eyes without hesitation, without anxiety. He felt a new vigor, a desire to try again. He counted—one, two, three—and then raced back to where the stack of white pages was waiting.