The Everlasting

I BARELY TOUCHED the book, that first day.

I simply crouched in my flat above the butcher shop and smoked an entire pack of Lucky Stars, lighting each cigarette from the butt of the last. It was a habit I’d picked up during the war and continued on doctor’s orders for my weak disposition, and also because it was the only way to overpower the meaty, battlefield smell of the butcher shop below.

I moved the book from my bedside to the desk and back again.

I performed a series of tests—not on the book, but on myself: writing out my whereabouts for the last three days to ensure there were no odd gaps, reciting every monarch of Dominion from Yvanne up to the republic, pinching myself quite hard, et cetera.