three
I am 28 years old. The second perfect number. Every morning, like my grandfather, I ate one banana and drank one cup of coffee. I’m not smart, even though I’ve read V. S. Naipaul’s correspondence with his father, seen André Breton’s Nadja, studied Deleuze and Guattari’s collaborative writings, the works of anonymous illuminators, ridden a bicycle, and drank mulled wine. But everything has changed. Every hour I eat two spoons of washing powder and I wait for Darzukmakhus to play chess with. Darzukmakhus is a bald doll with gouged-out eyes that only wakes up when I swallow the powder and then, when I lie in bed, I think about the next trip of sadness that awaits me in the dark. I’m wearing my grandfather’s worn woollen fur coat, I’m standing in front of a mirror, and with my right han
