The Abundance of the Infinite by Christopher Canniff Page A

accepted. Her life would be better here. After living here for a time, we would all travel the earth together, working as much as we needed to in order to obtain money for further travel.
    Over the next few days, I think of freedom and the myriad of possibilities before me. I imagine that I can see all of the immensity of life through the anticipation of travel along with Yelena and Annabelle, and through the windows of this apartment and the ocean it overlooks.
    I have the intuition as I mail the letter that all of the burdens of my previous existence have been lifted and that emancipation has been granted to me through this place.
    I no longer need to go anywhere in the mornings. I paint endlessly. I don’t teach the Señora’s daughters until late in the afternoon, after they have returned home from the university. The Señora tells me that they do not have to pay to attend the university, only for books, and that they do not have to pay for my tutoring services except by tolerating my presence in their house, which she says is no payment at all.

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    This evening is unique in my own personal history. I have only experienced insomnia infrequently, with increased stress, and I have never simply wandered about aimlessly at night. Despite my recently apparent euphoria, I cannot sleep. Wondering what Yelena is doing at this moment, thinking she would be reading late into the night with her endless cups of tea, I am relegated to roaming the streets, feeling as though I am in a lucid dream—the beaches, the stores and businesses are caged with retracting metal guards for the night, and the strange-looking women and tired-looking men seem too distracted by whatever it is they are looking for to notice me roving about. It is a strange world, that of the insomniac. It is a different view of humanity here, not one I would ever imagine myself proud to be a part of. It is a world that evolves after the curtains have been closed along the streets, long after the families have fallen into sleep. The families are secure with the broken bottle shards extending over their concrete fences, and with the guard dogs on their roofs. They are protected by these defenses against unwanted entry. They are sheltered in their fortifications against an immoral land of drug users and pushers, sexual gluttony and lust, and alcohol and tobacco. They are locked away against this land of excess and against this unseen city, which has now been unveiled before my eyes.
    There is the sound of music in the distance. As I walk toward it, a familiar figure appears from between dozens of abandoned buckets and elongated poles belonging to shrimp fishermen. I recognize the shape as Karen. She is dressed entirely in black. Her hair is pinned back. She is very attractive in this light.
    â€œJonathan,” she says, hugging me. She dangles a lit cigarette in one hand and a large glass smelling like sweetened turpentine, likely Caña Manabita sugarcane alcohol, in the other. She releases me after a moment.
    â€œ Venga ,” she says, walking away and extending her hand for me to follow. “Come here. Come and have a drink with me.”
    â€œThis explains why I never see you during the day,” I say.
    â€œThis doesn’t explain anything. We’re having a drink, that’s all.”
    â€œI don’t drink.”
    â€œNo explanations.”
    I grasp her hand as she lifts the glass to my lips to give me a long drink. She leads me somberly into a small group of people, all of them engaged in conversations in the rapid-speak and localized expressions of Ecuadorian coastal Spanish. They all extend their hands toward mine, in the proper sequence according to Karen’s introductions. Afterward she hands me her drink again, and as I down some more she tells me that they are mostly students and some professors.
    â€œI thought you weren’t going to explain anything,” I say.
    â€œWell, that was the only one