There are no more three-day-long days. That feeling of abundance depended not upon excess and not scarcity, but finitude and a kind of thrift. It had to do with there being only so much time in the day but still more than just enough and using up every ounce of it, not wasting a moment. But to be undead is to be superfluous, perpetual. The moon is

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

Mitchem preached on the roof again tonight. Only the undead can truly understand the meaning of life, he said. There is no meaning, he said. Bob was there. He seems to have been promoted. Now he carries the side table around and stands nearby when Mitchem is up there. Which comes first, a believer or a religion? Others are showing up now, too. I ca

He picked up the arm from where it was lying on the floor and held it out like something I needed to account for. He said, “You’ve experienced a significant loss.” He said, “It isn’t just your arm.” He said, “You’re grieving your life.” Since he broke off his penis he’s Mr. Wisdom.

A hotel might once have been a metaphor for the body, for purgatory, for any transitory site. Muffled hallways. The repeating pattern of low-pile carpet. Sconce lighting. Echoing emergency stairwells that smell vaguely familiar. The sound of doors closing. Plastic ice buckets. Theft-proof hangers without hooks. Drawers no one ever uses. Perfect. An

“I think grief is a time machine.”

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 buck

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.

“We all arrived here from the same place.” He gestures around at the walls, the windows. “We came here from life. A bleak and aimless world of uncertainty and self-delusion, of violence cloaked in compassion, of greed masquerading as order. A world of ranks and classes and races. Life. A world consumed by fear. A terrible world whose only consolati