Epicure

Edwin was the last thing I bought. With his uneven eyes and curious leg stumps, he was a must-have. When I showed Edwin to my housemates he was hugged many times, and praised as though he was real. Knowing my housemates, Edwin may have saved some lives today.

I have a steel locker with a handle and a key. I don't have the key anymore. The notebooks in it are putrid reminders of adolescent angst. They are the diaries of the forgone -the remains of a dead boy.

When I was in high school some kid drove his parents' car so fast into a lamppost that the car bent in two. He was crushed instantly. People left flowers at the crash site. I remembered him using a ballpoint pen to cover an entire page of lined notebook paper Bic black.

A couple weeks ago, I bent a spoon like Yuri Geller. I keep the bent metal as a talisman, with my collection of human leavings. Blood, mucous, hair, nails. You could say I'm equipped for death, or the happy converse — unequipped for life. I can't make the distinction, but I can certainly recommend a wine and cheese pairing or two, or the best place for bespoke suiting. The things we can possess and cherish. Things the dead mimic with uncanny precision.