Prose
Do you want my story? Turn away. I have nothing to offer you. Nothing spurious. Nothing enchanting. I know stories can corrupt me, so I have surrendered them. I have become an ascetic. I have chosen an austere, circumspect life. I am no legend. I am no parable. I refuse to be a lesson. My greatest accomplishment is my anonymity. It is required for my line of work.
It’s July of 1979. I know it’s July because I don’t have to go to school, and I know it’s 1979 because I’m nine years old. It’s easy to tell the years because it’s my age, and I just have to add up from 1970. I’ll say it now: I’m no good at math. I’m glad I don’t have to do anything but add my age to the year.
Helen sat on the toilet in her workplace bathroom with her black denim jeans pulled down to her ankles, checking her oxygen with an oximeter she had purchased over the pandemic. There was no reason for her to be checking her oxygen this early in the morning, except for the incessant worry that she could drop dead at any moment.
Mini was the first schizophrenic person I ever actually knew—besides my Uncle, who I only really knew of, and the people on Eddy Street that talked to themselves, who never really knew anybody. When I met her I was living in Daly City, renting a bedroom from a man I pretended to be Republican for; in the rental listing he stated he was looking for someone with “strong family values.”
