4

It must be after two by now. Maybe it’s after three. Maybe it’s not even midnight. I would have to sit up to see, and does it really matter? Ali breathing. Ed breathing. Eventually, the morning will come. This night is just a chunk of time that will soon be over and, when it’s over, will instantly be forgotten. It may feel like I have arrived at an important moment in my life, but that is just a feeling. It may seem as if various terrible things stored up inside me have chosen tonight to burst forth, but nothing has been stored up inside me. It’s all right here all the time. It may feel like there is a before, which ended when we all went to bed, and an after, which will start whenever the first daylight creeps in between the curtains. But there isn’t a before. There isn’t really an after. All of this is just a feeling.