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Jeg husker da jeg gikk gjennom 1800-tallet i kunstgallerier, så besatte de var av haremer. Dusinvis av malerier av haremer, tykke kvinner henslengt på divaner med turbaner eller fløyelskapper på hodet, mens de ble viftet med påfuglhaler og en evenukk i bakgrunnen sto vakt. Studier i stillesittende kjøtt, malt av menn som aldri hadde vært der. Disse bildene skulle forestille å være erotiske, og jeg syntes de var det da. Men nå ser jeg hva de egentlig forestilte. Det var malerier av skinndødhet. Av venting, av gjenstander som ikke var i bruk. Det var malerier av kjedsomhet.

Men kanskje kjedsomhet er erotisk, når det er noe kvinner gjør, for menn.

In the desert there is no sign that says, Thou shalt not eat stones. - Sufi proverb

That kind of love comes and goes and is hard to remember afterwards, like pain. You look at the man one day and you would think, I loved you, and the tense would be past, and you would be filled with a sense of wonder, because it was such an amazing and precarious and dumb thing to have done; and you would know too why your friends had been evasive about it, at the time.

Don’t let the bastards grind you down. I repeat this to myself but it conveys nothing. You might as well say, Don’t let there be air; or Don’t be. I suppose you could say that.

I used to think of my body as an instrument, of pleasure, or a means of transportation, or an implement for the accomplishment of my will . . . Now the flesh arranges itself differently. I’m a cloud, congealed around a central object, the shape of a pear, which is hard and more real than I am and glows red within its translucent wrapping.

The problem wasn’t only with the women, he says. The main problem was with the men. There was nothing for them anymore . . . I’m not talking about sex, he says. That was part of it, the sex was too easy . . . You know what they were complaining about the most? Inability to feel. Men were turning off on sex, even. They were turning off on marriage. Do they feel now? I say. Yes, he says, looking at me. They do.

Better never means better for everyone, he says. It always means worse for some.

Night falls. Or has fallen. Why is it that night falls, instead of rising, like the dawn? Yet if you look east, at sunset, you can see night rising, not falling; darkness lifting into the sky, up from the horizon, like a black cloud behind cloud cover. Like smoke from an unseen fire, a line of fire just below the horizon, brushfire or burning city. Maybe night falls because it's heavy, a thick curtain pulled up over the eyes. Wool blanket. I wish I could see in the dark, better than I do.