There is a box under the coffee table full of small, ceramic sculptures. I made them in my midtwenties. I have all these records, but I don’t listen to music anymore.

At one time, it wasn’t just stuff. It all meant so much to me. All of it. Marrow that has turned to fat.

My living room chair is the only place I sit. It’s where I watch TV. It’s where I nap. It’s where I eat. I have a bowl of red soup in front of me on my tray, a single lamp lighting the room. I ate the first half of the can for supper last night. I sip the salty broth without pleasure. I don’t sleep well at night. My body is tired. My knee aches.

I sit here in my chair from late afternoon until dark, when I realize it must be time for bed. I don’t have much of an appetite. I never did, but it has diminished with age. I’m not turned off by food. I understand that it is essential. I mostly sip my soup for its warmth, which is lost by the last few spoonfuls. Consuming greedily, gorging the way some do, was never appealing to me. I couldn’t do it. I eat slowly. Hot food always grows cold.

I used to enjoy cooking for myself and for others. I adored watching friends eat the food I’d made them. I’d take pleasure in cleaning the dirty napkins after a meal, relics of shared satisfaction. We’d have large, raucous dinner parties every few weeks. We’d open wine and discuss politics, art, religion, music, film. We’d dance, sing, play games, laugh.

We knew most of our friends from the art world, but we’d also include neighbors from our building, and people we knew from the neighborhood. I’d invite colleagues from work. My day job was a teller at the same bank for more than twenty-five years. The job mostly involved filing deposit slips. The last time I was there, ages ago, I didn’t know a single face. I didn’t recognize anyone.

I used to make a huge pot of rich bone broth the color of mahogany every Sunday. It became a winter tradition. The apartment would slowly fill up with its nourishing smell, which would stay on our clothes for days. I would roast whole chickens two at a time and make mushroom omelets with an arugula salad dressed with a lemon vinaigrette. My buttermilk biscuits were famous in the building. I’d always make enough to give half of them away.

But my favorite meal was the simplest. A single fried egg, over easy, with a piece of buttered toast to dip in the yolk. I learned to make it when I was around nine or ten. This lunch, with a hot cup of tea, was something that sustained me over and over again. Now the thing I eat most often is soup and dry soda crackers.

I scan the living room again. Everything’s so old-fashioned. Even I can see that. Outdated. Worn out. This used to actually be a room for living. Now it’s no more than a mangy depository. A shabby and confined storehouse for old newspapers, random trinkets, carpet stains, and me.