It’s a wide, windy river, the Delaware. Gusts of wind stirring the waves into small whitecaps.

A sensation of unease, agitation has come over me. Is it the wind. Pricking tears in my eyes. (Each night before bed I take one drop in each eye of a stinging liquid, allegedly to slow the ravages of a premature glaucoma; my eyes have grown sensitive.) A mounting tension, excitement, as if something were about to burst into flame.

When the flame illuminates the newspaper page from beneath with an exquisite, quivering radiance. That is how I am feeling!

The decision has been made. The choice.

Postal clerk, librarian, cashier—cashier.

(It should be clearly stated: I have very little interest in “characters” of the kind that populate prose fiction. The individuals I’ve described who live in the small town in which I seem now to be dwelling are not “characters,” but actual living people—that is their singular, sole identification. They are not representative or significant. There is no way to imagine that they are of any worth except to a small circle of persons who know them, if even to those.)

It’s true—(I see now)—I’ve been aware of the cashier Keisha for some time. Not entirely consciously, but—aware.

Usually, cashiers, clerks, waiters, and waitresses pass into and out of my consciousness without definition or identity. If Keisha had not returned to work, I would not have missed her, and even now, I am sure that if I never saw her again, she would soon fade from memory.

Does that sound harsh? It does not feel harsh.

Since I have long ago exhausted my patience with others, indeed with my own self, there is really no opportunity for emotion to flourish, as bacteria flourish in warm, humid recycled air (like hot-air dryers in public lavatories touted as “sanitary”). For reasons that will remain my own business, by the (relatively young) age of thirty-four I’d had enough emotion. I’d had enough interest, curiosity. Quite content not to become involved with another person for the remainder of my life.

If you love, you will regret it.

To love is to love unwisely.

Harden your heart! Before another hardens it.

Yet by the time I reach home, my heart has begun to beat rapidly. My eyes blink rapidly, as if a blinding light were being shone into them.

“I will! I will do it.”

Rare for me to exclaim, even in the privacy of my house. Rare for me to laugh aloud, as I am doing now.

What I will do: set a plot in motion and see where it ends.

(If it ends. Some plots have no natural conclusions.)

I will send Keisha a fifty-dollar bill with no explanation. Just a folded sheet of paper in an envelope with the terse message, in small caps—FOR KEISHA.

Address the envelope to Keisha c/o McGuire's Grocery, Humboldt & Depot Streets, Herrontown, PA.