2 I awoke around three in the morning, just like always. Through the gray sheet tacked over my window came pale yellow light from the sign of the shop below. It sold clocks and lamps and all sorts of bullshit. Shelves piled high with coffee mugs, hammers, picture frames—whatever they found they put up for sale. Asian guy and his wife. Not too old, but beaten down … He always used to cast his eyes on the floor and mumble when I’d greet him. So I stopped saying hi. The wife would lean against the front window all day, her face pressed between the retractable iron cage that had never been slid aside. She would peer out into the few feet she could see before the mist got too thick, and then, whenever someone materialized out front she leaned back, staring at them with her little black eyes. I’d never heard her say a word. I hadn’t been in there for over a year. I got my sun sphere there: a fancy model with a luminous clock built into it. That’s how I always knew it was three.
