Thousand: Two Hundred Fifty-One

hand over his chest. The material feels soft, then prickly, then smooth. He feels buttons, a heavy knit, a tie, ruffles, some at the same time, some seem quickly to vanish. On the version of himself he sees in the window his clothes are a blur. This is all getting a bit much. Look, he says. In my reality, the one in which I’m sitting on your bathroom floor and you are dead, Ed, is there a big passenger airliner about to slam into the building? Oh, you aren’t sitting on the bathroom floor. What? You are not sitting on