It is not simple emptiness. Not lack. Not want. Not hunger. It is not hunger. It is grief.

We are just like the living. Hunger is only ravenous hope.

It is not precisely accurate to say that nothing has changed. It’s all farther along. And it is quieter. And the quiet is emptier. At night, walking the streets, it is especially noticeable. You can hear things settling, the way an old house settles. Creaking and popping. Some buildings are tilting into the fill on which they were built. Walls

When I was little and my mom was working at the corral, I spent all day as a horse. I ate molasses covered oats from the grain bin. I drank from the water troughs. When I ran I was galloping. I’d look along the edge of the forest for two sticks just the right length and hold them in my hands for front legs. The sticks helped me see myself, feel

That’s another thing—most of us can’t remember who we are…were…are. We are character actors to ourselves—people we recognize but can’t name.

“But your name isn’t Carlos,” I say. “Carlos is the name I have given my name,” he says. “You seem like a Carlos,” I say.

I was thinking about golems. I was thinking that I am like a golem. I feel more like earth now than like an animal. Mud and sticks and rags that look and act something like a live thing. And I thought: But really I’m more like an owl pellet. A boney, furry, coughed-up turd that walks and talks. But then it wasn’t just a joke to myself. It became an