The Life of the World to Come by Dan Cluchey Page A

which gave me nearly eight weeks to lie on the floor and dodge phone calls from the people I loved most. I didn’t go home to my parents; I didn’t go anywhere, and Boots and Sona were the only two people I let into my building during that long dark vacancy—a new house rule. Otherwise, I dealt exclusively with strangers. I started sitting down in the shower, sometimes for an hour or more. I ate and drank alone each day. I stopped wondering about anything, and dimly chased her ghost around the apartment, slouching from bathroom to kitchen to bed like a wounded animal.
    Bzzzzzzzz .
    â€œDude,” crackled Boots into the ancient intercom. “The government sent me to make sure you’re alive today.”
    This was the seventeenth of August: three weeks into the new calendar, the one Fiona invented by leaving.
    â€œHow we doing today, buddy?” Boots asked, first thing.
    â€œI think I’m dying, Boots.”
    â€œStill emo. That’s wonderful. You know, I can never tell whether you’re actually depressed or whether you’re just regular-sad and doing a little commentary about depression.”
    â€œMe neither sometimes,” I conceded, because it was good to have one sharp ally. I was actually depressed that day.
    â€œSo I’ll ask again, and maybe you can shoot for an under-the-top response this time: Leo, how are you?”
    â€œI’ve had better months. All of them, actually,” I croaked truthfully, burrowing further into the easy chair.
    â€œAnd I understand that, but I’m going to keep asking from time to time, just so we can be sure that you’re on an upward trajectory.”
    â€œI’m fine. I need time, you know? To process. More time.”
    Boots was a tremendous pal, and perfectly suited to this particular tragedy. He’d had an engagement broken off prior to law school which nearly wrecked him, and that gave him a survivor’s view—an aerial perspective on my suffering that I could never hope to comprehend from way down here on the molten ground.
    At thirty, he was four years my senior, but his face bore the crags and heavy remembrances of a much older man. He had a face like an old wooden workbench—angular, unshaved, and dusty, and were it not for his hollow cheeks, we could have easily been mistaken for brothers. Before law school he’d been a drummer for a hyper-locally renowned three-piece Brooklyn outfit called Snaggletooth. I joined him on guitar half a dozen times—most often at lushy student organization parties—and together with our bassist acquaintance, Shira Pollard, and Gracie, herself a vivid singer and serviceable pianist, there was much talk of dropping out and making a go of it (what would we call our ragtag band? “Counselor,” it was decided). Never happened.
    â€œYou gotta clean this place up, man.”
    â€œI know,” I said.
    â€œThese flowers are dying,” Boots pointed out, as he plucked an ashen ex-carnation from the vase on the table.
    â€œI know. Fiona got them for me—for the Bar, I guess—and I, uh, appreciate the metaphor.”
    Boots picked up a bag of grapes from the kitchen counter and began to casually whip them at my chest, one at a time.
    â€œHey!” he hollered.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œHey!”
    â€œWhat? Stop that.”
    â€œHow long are you going to be like this for?” he asked, the next grape striking me squarely on the forehead.
    â€œI don’t know. How long did it take you to snap out of it?”
    â€œAlmost a year.”
    â€œOkay, so, it sounds like I’ve got a year minus three weeks before you can pass judgment on my mood.”
    â€œIt’s not healthy to be this devastated. Trust me. You’ve gotta get out there, you know? Out into the open air. Embrace the fresh start! I don’t want to have to explain why you’re such a sad sack to all of our fancy new colleagues when we get to the New