Tuesday

Since they have taken my usual laundry detergent off the shelves, I haven’t known what to do. Sleep has become impossible, for one thing. This morning I spoke with the manager of the grocery store and she told me it was discontinued. The detergent, that is, not sleep. Naturally, one has to double-check these claims, so I went to another grocery store and spoke with the manager there and she gave me the same answer. Just to be sure, I drove to the next town and went to its unimpressive grocery store and its unimpressive manager told me the same thing. It was as if they were different actors reading from the same script: that brand has been discontinued, discontinued, discontinued. None of the names of the new brands inspires any confidence.

Wednesday

Have I mentioned my solution to the problem of being unable to phone Isabella? When the need comes, usually at night, sometimes rather late at night, I dial a number that is just one digit different from hers. Tonight an old man answered. At any rate, he sounded like an old man, with an accent I couldn’t place. He was excitable at first, about the hour of the call, but he settled down and heard me out, which may also, now that I think about it, be part of the reason for my thinking him an old man: old men can be easily disturbed, but they can also be patient, moving from one state of being to the other with speed they might no longer otherwise possess. I told him about Isabella, about the laundry detergent. He said, and I think he said it sympathetically, that he knew nothing of detergents: his wife took care of such matters. I don’t remember which one of us apologized first, but we both apologized before hanging up.

Friday

Yesterday it was as though the car drove itself, as though I were in some sort of deep trance, perhaps sleep-driving, and found myself in a town I’d never before visited, asking some boys on a street corner for the location of the best grocery store there. When I stopped the car, I seemed to snap out of it and was struck, as though across the face by an ungloved hand, by a sense of self-disgust. All the same, I went in and checked the shelves just in time to find a woman placing the last bottle of that familiar detergent in her cart. I assumed the calmest manner I could and asked her whether she knew that that particular brand was being discontinued. She looked at me wordlessly, so I continued: it had been found to be chemically unsafe, would you believe it, afflicting sensitive skin, terribly, that’s what the experts were saying, terribly unsafe. Everybody thinks they have sensitive skin. I repeated: especially bad for those with sensitive skin. She failed to blink. When my hand involuntarily moved toward her cart, she forcefully pushed it away and disappeared round the corner. Eventually I bought a pineapple and left.

Saturday

I don’t eat pineapple but the visual appearance of the thing intrigues me. Placed on my bedroom dresser, where I can see it first thing in the morning, there’s something preposterously sad about it, I think. How many nights since I last slept?

Monday

Describing one’s feelings. In particular, describing one’s feelings for another person. Not Isabella, obviously: make a more modest start. Take the woman working the register at the store where I bought the clothes this morning, the woman whose name tag alleged that her name was Posey. She tried very hard not to comment on my purchasing five pairs of socks, five pairs of underwear, and five shirts: our eyes met a couple of times and I could see the effort, and I tried to project with my own eyes my appreciation. To put her more at ease I mentioned that the words helicopter and pterodactyl are directly related, which just goes to show you. And she asked: shows you what? I remain uncertain as to whether or not that was an intelligent question. That things come and go, I said. For example, a given laundry detergent might be discontinued, but there’s nothing, absolutely nothing to say that it couldn’t come back. Popular demand? she asked. No, it’s no good: I’m too preoccupied to describe my feelings for her. Five more days of clean clothing.

Tuesday

Four more days of clean clothing.

Wednesday

Three more days of clean clothing. The number three has a cruel aspect I had never noticed before.

Wednesday

The pineapple has spoken to me, and I don’t think it was in a dream. It can’t have been a dream, since I still haven’t slept: sometimes I start to drop off, but I’m suddenly pulled back by the thought of letting that last bottle of detergent get away from me. I could have grabbed it and ran. What was I thinking of, jabbering all that nonsense about sensitive skin? At any rate, the pineapple had a very deep and resonating voice. I wish I could remember exactly what it said.

Wednesday

Surely it can’t be Wednesday. Yesterday was Wednesday, wasn’t it? By accident I very nearly dialed Isabella’s number. What a relief to hear a strange voice answer: nothing remotely like Isabella’s, and even less like that of the pineapple. I asked for confirmation on the Wednesday question but received only abuse for my trouble. Rudeness is to be pitied. If I have said it once, I have said it a thousand times.

Tuesday

For a moment I thought I was sleeping but I wasn’t. Are the clothes I am wearing truly clean?

Wednesday

Doctor, I said, I am concerned for my sensitive skin, my especially sensitive skin, you won’t want me to become gnarled like a pineapple, do you, or even discontinued altogether? He’s not a real doctor but I call him that, the way Italians charmingly use the honorific Dottore, not that he’s even remotely Italian, this man that comes to check on me from time to time, sent by whom I can’t begin to guess. Doctor, I said, I can’t even remember what the pineapple told me, and it seemed important, I mean it must have been for it to actually vocalize, but this inability to sleep is clearly getting in the way of my remembering, and I am just trying to describe my feelings.

Today

Posey wasn’t working today; I asked for her but this other girl whose name tag was not attached to her person told me she wasn’t working today, so I admitted that I might have been mistaken about the name, but it definitely wasn’t Isabella, for example, or anything remotely like that, and I honestly didn’t know what to believe and well, I suppose I must have cried a little because this girl without a name tag tried in a very clumsy way to be solicitous, and though I can respect that effort, you know, sometimes the lighting in these commercial spaces can be too much, essence of fluorescence, it’s the world, the whole world, maybe I said that about the world, the whole world aloud because this girl without a name tag said, you know it was the kindest thing she could have said, she said: I know what you mean. I know what you mean.