At 5:00 a.m., he sat back down at the typewriter. He pulled out the half-finished poem and crumpled it. Then he put in a fresh sheet. The paper was yellowed, soft with age, like a dead man’s skin. He rolled it into place. He stared at the blank space.
He looked at the typewriter. The carriage was stuck. A half-finished poem sat in the roller. It was called “PDF I.” He didn’t know what PDF meant. Portable Document Format? That was too clean. Too corporate. For Henry, it meant Puta, Dios, y Fútbol. Whore, God, and Soccer. Three things that had never saved a single soul. At 5:00 a
He finished the sherry. The bottle joined the cockroach on the floor. He thought about calling someone. His ex-wife. His bookie. The woman with the gold tooth. But his hand didn’t move. The phone was an artifact from another century. A black rotary with a tangled cord. He hadn’t heard a human voice in six days. The last one was the grocer saying, “That’ll be four eighty-five.” He’d paid with nickels. The paper was yellowed, soft with age, like
And it was enough.
He typed one more line. Then he pulled the paper out, folded it once, and put it in his pocket. Someday, someone would find it. Or not. That was the point. He looked at the typewriter