“I needed to know that others had endured what my family was going through, regardless of the outcome.”

“All I can think is that everywhere March must be different. The fat man, bearded, in thong sandals, tells me dryer #1 is broken, holds up to me his limp sweatpants—It didn’t dry a thing, he says.”

“Why did you put your eye on other things? Why did it all go on without you?”

“By preventing myself from thinking about how to do more with my day or why I hadn’t accomplished as much as so-and-so—by ‘doing nothing’—I constructed a new framework of what mattered to me.”

“What he didn’t understand was that the more heavenly our experience, the starker its contrast with my mind’s occupations, the wider the chasm would yawn between us, the more alienated I’d be. It was like the story of Moses, in which the water of the Egyptians was turned into blood. A curse had crippled me. Shown blue ocean, I saw crimson gore.”

What is the meaning of an imaginary friend? Appearing mainly to children but at times lasting into adulthood, invented companions can signal madness, creativity, both, or neither. Sometimes, they simply serve as company.

People complain about the city. There is never not something to complain about. The sidewalks fill with leaves — red and gold — and these critics still complain. Some people complain and never say goodbye but, sometimes, a complainer vacates.