“I’ve bought you something,” she said. She looked excited, like a puppy eager to please.

“Oh really? What could that be? A season ticket to the opera, or a year’s supply of anti-depressants?” he said and shut the front door.

“Ow,” said the door. “Not so hard.”

“You’ll like it, I think,” she said. Her tongue was hanging out and she’d cocked her head to one side so that her ear flopped in a cute way over her left eye. “It’s to help your recovery. Come through.”

She led him into the sitting room.

“It’s an aquarium,” he said. “It’s just what I’ve always wanted. Is there a sunken ship?”

I am sitting in a room with at least three hundred people, and I have been asked to move to the back because of my gigantic hat. I am not sure how to react. If I move, I will undoubtedly read about my shame in tomorrow’s gossip section, or at least I will hear about it tauntingly during my daily super-spacial swimming with fellow gentlemen. I do not want this. And, I reason, if the people behind me were important enough to do something about it, they would very probably not be sitting behind me.

“I don’t know what to tell you, our last exterminator wasn’t worth jack. He bumped and bruised his way through our home like a Neanderthal on steroids.”

“He was a cute Neanderthal from what I remember.”

“Eh, I don’t like the cleft chin thing; it reminds me of a plumber’s crack. And when someone’s ripping your kitchen apart and tearing up your hydrangeas, it’s pretty difficult to find them attractive.”

I pray to the patron Saint of Redirection, who shows up juggling sardines and a large red apple he takes a bite out of every revolution or so.

“This life,” I say. “The sheer weight of it…”

“Is that you?” he asks, letting the silvery circle collapse at his feet — slipping the apple in his pocket. He’s pointing to an old photo. “No, that’s my older brother, when we were kids. I’m the one…” I turn and see he’s now rowing across the living room in a small boat. “Calm seas,” he announces, skirting the TV. “I think it’s going to be a magnificent voyage.”

“Folkstone looks a lot less orange today,” says Denise. “So that’s the good news. The bad news is that he’s still not quite on message about the school funding thing. He told the Nurses Association that his plan would cut their property taxes by an average of 31%. But our data shows that 64% of nurses in our state rent rather than own their primary residences. And as you know …”