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She heads back into the office. I stand outside in the cold, imagining myself working even faster, faster than the speed of light, working so hard I become even more of a blur, not sleeping, not eating, woman as machine. I picture Sasha’s insides, the pink of her womb, the eggs in her ovaries shriv…

Up above us, the sun blazes, that almost-perfect sphere, which will one day consume us, all of us, me, him, everything, engulfing the whole world in an endless white light before cutting to pure black, to absolute nothingness.

This last scene sent me into a profound depression for a long stretch of days. With each horror, a new slit is cut into my brain. The way wild amounts of wealth brush up against extreme poverty and displacement here is like nothing I’ve ever seen. Maria and I are somewhere in the middle: neither we…

I didn’t know it then, but the cycle would continue for years: job after monotonous job, title after title, commuting back and forth on an endless highway, promotions and small bonuses, two weeks’ vacation, slowly losing motivation with each job, the black hole never far away.

But for a moment, …

Below my window, the people who sleep on the streets are gone. In the weekend daylight, it’s another city entirely. People chat with friends, stroll hand in hand with their lovers, buy armfuls of flowers. Everyone else seems to know what to do with their free time: shopping, getting high on a blank…