At the restaurant, we order our favorite: Two burgers, fries. I watch his mouth split and bite into the meat, and it is as beautiful as a painting, as beautiful as an oil painting, as beautiful as anything I have ever seen.

THE WOMEN IN THE CITY WEAR HIGH heels and sharp suits. Their bodies are lithe. It seems only skin is stretched over their bones, muscle removed.

“What would you like today?” asks the woman in white inside the silver lunch truck. Her mouth is puckered, a glare to her eyes. I’ve taken too long again.

“What did she have?”

I point to the city woman standing a few feet away. She’s pencilthin, an arrow, long hair highlighted to perfection. My loose clothes blow around on me. I am a linen line in the wind.

“A fucking salad, come on.”

“I’ll have a salad.”

I watch her while I eat, lettuce in my mouth, between the teeth. I watch the way her clothes tuck around her wired body, her eyes on the horizon, looking into a future I cannot see.

THERE IS NOTHING TO IT, THE MOTIONS, I go through them each day.

I build a new life out of minutes filled with small actions, my distraction techniques:

WASHING HAIR

SHAVING BODY

STARING THROUGH WINDOW

EATING

MASTURBATING

SLEEPING

I repeat and I repeat and I repeat. I inch toward death.

EACH NIGHT AT HOME, I WASH OFF THE mask. Then, I place the false heart in a small black box on the dresser.

After, I make a simple dinner: Chicken, starch, vegetable. The meat tastes gray in my mouth.

The silence of the apartment swells. Later, in bed, my mind churns, my organs grind against each other, a swarm of bees thrum through my veins until I slide my hand between my legs, until the sweet pink rush before I sleep.

SOPHIA CALLS.

“We’re in love,” she says.

I picture love: They must be next to each other in bed. They must be feeding each other small cakes. They are definitely fucking constantly. They must be warm.

Outside, the city starts a cold rain. I curl into bed alone.

MY DREAMS ESCALATE IN THEIR strangeness. I dream of the Meat Quarry with a broken gate.

I wander in deep, until I find my family, sitting on the ground, mouths covered in red, filled with meat, teeth pink, roaring with laughter, tears streaming from their eyes.

“There you are!” my father booms. “We’ve been waiting!”

In the dream, I can sense Jarred at the periphery of the quarry, the long black shadow of his danger.

I wake sandy-mouthed, dehydrated, safe, alone.

EACH FRIDAY, THE BOSS CARRIES A SMALL black velvet pouch. This is called PAY DAY and it is marked on the calendar with a single exclamation point.

“Good job again this week,” he says. “Here’s what makes the world go ’round, am I right?”

He gives me a wink.