He seemed like a man who spent his free time being troubled by the infinite, and the rest of his time making sure he could eat. Now must have been his free time, because he had a remarkable expression on his face, somewhere between pensiveness and fear, and probably fear at not spending enough of his life being pensive. I, meanwhile, was tired of the page in front of me, and waiting to get a blowjob. I met the girl buying a book a week ago and thought to myself what is a girl like this doing working at a bookstore.

         I cannot say I don’t sympathize with the man. I’d spent a considerable portion of my life in my bedroom. But no one lives in their bedroom; they just sit there while they live elsewhere. When I realized that whichever way I sliced it, I’d spent most of my life trying to understand the life I had to spend, I realized that while existential crises are important, so is rushing down a hill on four small wheels.

         The man’s expression had intensified, and his friend sat back and watched, respecting the process by which one cracks a serious philosophical issue. I’m also guessing he sat back because he’d never had the desire to crack one himself. He’d probably married up.

         Lucy (the girl) arrived and sat down across from me, hair bouncing. She really was beautiful, but I’d learned not to be captivated. The metaphysical man, however, looked up when she passed him. Oh no, I thought. He’s been triggered. The other man looked up as well, but then looked back at his friend. He definitely married up. Lucy was out of my league.

         After the blowjob, which she hadn’t promised me and which we hadn’t spoken about before, we took a walk downtown—in the area where the ground was covered in shade and the sky was covered in bright green leaves. I was in the kind of mood where you’re unaware of what mood you’re in—I’d worked hard that day. It was nice to wander with Lucy, and it was not long after, when we were sitting down, that I realized with her I could also wonder. The thought hit me that everybody’s life is really just the logical result of what they think it is, and I expressed it to Lucy. She just looked at a homeless man across the street and said, “I wonder what he thinks it is.”

         I asked her if it mattered as long as he was sitting under the same shade as us. She went inside to get her coffee refilled into a to-go cup. A few moments later we found ourselves on the edge of a rooftop, sitting on the same kind of concrete that you would find on the ground. Her cup was to her right, less than full, and I was to her left, with my fingers resting against it. We were soaked in sunlight so red that we didn’t have to squint when I asked her what she thought life was, and she asked me if it mattered as long as she was sitting next to me. Again, I had to remind myself not to be captivated.

         A few moments later we heard some shouting below. A few moments after that we heard a gunshot. And a few moments after that the sun had set.