Overheard Starbuck

"One evening I found myself trying to connect the night I slept with her with something, anything, in the rented room I was staying: the color of the walls, the tilt of the dresser, the stains on the ceiling, the doorknobs, the murmuring radio from the room above, the broken light-fixture, the way the headlights of the passing cars washed across the far wall, the rancid smell of oil from the Chinese take-out next door, the cricket in the corner, the shadows in the mirror. I hadn't thought about her for years.
I couldn't get her to stay just a little bit longer."