Across the room. Unfortunately, before I could set sail for the drinks table, I had to contend with Roger coming toward me in his cowboy boots. Roger swears incessantly and excitedly about things that bother him; he’s a complainer. To avoid him I had to tack left—away from the bar and toward the Life magazines. This took me past Jeremy in his agony on the purple divan. Of course I had those syringes in my coat pocket. It was not the moment for recreation with needles, veins, strange medicines. Twins in their protective swarm huddled over Jeremy, blocking him from view except for one foot sticking out between someone’s legs. “Put a couple of these in his mouth,” one twin exhorted another. Aspirin? I know I said I would not recount the night’s petty encounters and conversations. Then again, who knows what fragment of dialogue, offhand gesture, inadvertent slight, so forth—who knows what exactly will, in retrospect, turn out to have been, in some unforeseeable way, in the end, meaningful? I veered away from the purple divan and forged a path among towering open stacks. It was good to see a few readers leaning against shelves. One was Larry, and he had in his hands our well-thumbed study of salvation by foreordainment, Bartlett and Gibson’s Infralapsarianism in Everyday Life. As I passed him, he looked up from the page.

“Doug, got a minute?”

“Sure.”

“I’m having a little problem with God.”

“What’s up?”

“Life after death.”

Two brothers nearby, Simon and Henry, also reading, apparently, Christian History and Theology, glanced up at this, peered in our direction, listening in. Larry did not seem to mind or notice; he said, “Lately I have this feeling that life is very short, Doug.”

He took a deep breath. His face was not clean and wore the drained, unsettled expression of a man needing sleep.

“How old are you, Larry?”

“Thirty.”

“I see.”

“Everything’s rushing by, you know?”

“I do.”

“I thought by now I’d have some idea how to not feel so afraid,” he said, and grinned. Was this one of those occasions for prayer? A brief and silent prayer for the happiness and well-being of a troubled younger brother? I asked him, “How afraid are you?”

“Very afraid.”

“Insomnia?”

“Yes.”

“Loss of appetite?”

“Yes.”

“Inability to concentrate?”

“Yes.”

“Dry mouth?”

“Yes.”

“Intermittent hyperventilation?”

“Definitely.”

“Frequent urination? Persistent suicidal ideation?”

“Mmn.”

Overhead lights flickered off, on, off. It is forever like night in the stacks. Larry’s unclean face hovered close to mine. His voice sounded weak, sickly, and his breath smelled like milk.

“Do you ever have these feelings, Doug?”

“No.”

Why did I tell him this lie? Now he would suppose his problems were unusual and grave, rather than ordinary and average, and he would feel alone with them. He looked stricken. It’s best to try not to cause pain, but pain seems to happen despite the most friendly intentions. Suddenly I was glad I had Barry’s syringes in my coat pocket—though I am not sure why I thought of the syringes at that moment.