Primordial: An Abstraction

25

I quit my job. I don’t tell anybody. It’s too much work anyway and I have other things to do.

For years, I continue to receive a stipend as well as a partial tuition waiver.

It’s not enough.

I should have asked my parents for some money when they were here. Book sales are weak these days.

One of my publishers has stopped sending me royalties. I don’t remember receiving any royalties from them in the first place. I check my records. The records say I never received one royalty check from them, although they did give me a sizable advance.

That was eight years ago.

Even after I bully and extort my roommates and some other people living in my dorm and a few other dorms and faculty residences, I don’t have enough money.

Granted, money is relative. What seems like a little to me will doubtless be a lot to somebody else.

I have expensive tastes and was raised with bourgeois ethics notwithstanding my grasp of the concept of humility.

I call my wife.

I ask her to sell one of the kids and send me the cash.

She gets mad.

I tell her I’m just kidding. That’s the truth. But I want to see how she’ll react just the same.

She reacts.

I say, “I love you.”

She says something back and then we hang up.