Chapter 4

4

The morning could have started off much worse.

After the alarm went off we went our separate ways. She to the bathroom for a shower, me, upstairs to grab my pack of cigarettes. I step outside into the morning mountain air. I fill my lungs with its crispness, then light the smoke.

This morning calm, this solitude, this is why I proceed from day to day. My mind is afire with imagination. I'll write fifteen to twenty pages before I even sit down in front of my typewriter. The sentences piece themselves together, forming at such a rate that my memory can't keep pace. I've lost volumes of work between the spaces in my mind. They'd have to invent a brain recorder to get it all down.

The coffee has finished brewing and I'm halfway into my second cigarette when she steps outside to give me the news.

"Richard, I have something to tell you."

I take a long, pondersome draw from the cigarette. Chewing on the inside of my cheek I prolong the exhale. Then I raise my chin for whatever uppercut she's about to land.

"Richard...Richard, I'm leaving you."

She's said my name three times. She's clicked her heels together.

"Well," I reply, "At least you're not pregnant."