Naked, he was as I had imagined. Besides a tuft of fine golden hairs in the vicinity of his pinkish meats, his skin didn’t have a single hair. I could smell the spiciness of his deodorant, and his breath, which was like Japanese broth. His chest is what entranced me. His skin had never seen the sun, and to my joy, had all the whiteness of cooked egg white. His two breasts were like sunny side up eggs, only the yolks, like the sun’s eye, were blood red. I turned my head aside and red egg yolks gambolled under my glance. I closed my eyes and they appeared against the soft screens of my lids. Dr. Timberland, how deeply he slept, unaware of the air that moved in and out of him, strangely ignorant of his own heart, meticulous, succulent offal. His eyes, shut, were like ravioli, his eyeballs, bumps of ricotta and ground meat, his lids, coats of pasta.

I slipped back into the kitchen and found a stale loaf of bread out of which I cut five pointed fingers. I found a stick of butter in the old refrigerator (there was practically nothing else besides) and buttered the bread fingers. Three small bottles of spices, white and black pepper, and paprika, stood next to a single hob. I sprinkled paprika over the butter as if I were painting my nails, pushing the cat away with my foot. With five fingers in one hand and a knife in the other, I kneeled beside Dr. Timberland. How both red yolks went up and down with his every breath, as if they were floating on water, the waves moving them gently up and down with the same secret life that animates every ocean tide. With a stroke of the knife, I severed the finest of Dr. Timberland’s red skins, keeping me from the tender liquids of his aureole.

Dr. Timberland did not cry. He sat up, looked upon his bleeding breast, and did not move. The red sap seeped down his bony torso, made red canals out of the furrows between his ribs. My mouths drooled all the more. My impatience could stall no longer. I dipped a bread finger into the red aureole and devoured it savagely.

Dr. Timberland, witnessing my act, returned promptly to his sleep before he had even resumed his horizontal position. His head struck the iron bars at the head of his bed with a solemn chime, after which he did not notice, or care, that his neck was crooked, nor that his head was caught sideways between two of the bars. I dipped the remaining bread fingers deeper into the wound.

The bathroom smelt of towels that were never dried properly. The bathtub, I noticed, was sandy at the bottom. I didn’t mind. I turned the hot water tap on as far as it would go. The water gushed out, hot and steamy. It was all so exciting. I ran to the kitchen for the bouillon cubes, as many as I could hold, peeled them with joy, and threw them in. I rushed back for a ladle. The bouillon cubes softened, leaving a greasy film on the surface. Chicken soup, I chuckled to myself, mother of life. I ground more cubes with my fingers, observing the water as it turned from lemon yellow to a deeper ochre.