SCENE THREE
The Cycle of Birth and Death
The story embarrassed her, as if she was embarrassed about having met him. She was hurt when he recounted it one time like a joke, as something you could see either as an irony of fate or a stroke of good luck. She passed through the metro station almost every day on her way to work and back. Yes, they met in the Metro, she on her way back to one student hostel, and he on his way back to another. He woke in bed in the middle of the night, his whole body aching as if he had been beaten, even his arms. He crept through to the kitchen, turned on the light, and there she was on the couch. He thought his mother had fallen asleep because she was wearing his mother’s dressing gown, lying facing the wall under a check blanket. He gulped down a lot of wate
