I go to the train station to meet my girlfriend. I am wearing all kinds of scarves against the weather. It is snowing. The train comes in but my girlfriend isn’t on it. A conductor covered with snowballs informs me that my girlfriend has had plastic surgery without telling me, and the operation got fouled up, and now she’s too ashamed ever to see me again.
I go home, a multitude of ambivalences battling within me. I keep peering about for anyone swathed in bandages, in case she might have come out here secretly on the bus.
At home, I remember the telephone in the freezer. I take it out. The surface of the receiver is brown and wilted, like old lettuce. But the inside will probably still be good. “She can use this to graft with,” I think. I turn on the tap in the sink and begin carefully scraping off the outside of the receiver. The phone rings in my hands. I don’t answer it, I want to surprise her. The ringing goes on a long time before stopping. I start to feel guilty. What if she really needed me? I lose heart with the surprise and finally wreck the good stuff by accidentally tearing off a piece.
I go into the bathroom and begin tying knots in the scarves, out of despair. There is a knock at the front door. The train conductor comes in, dripping, and says, “Didn’t you recognize me?”