May 7, 2021 - From Issue No. 8 - 2020

May 9, 2020

Everything Maria kept saying about time and the fact that we were running out of it made sense. She came rushing back from Kansas City two months after she had left and when she walked in the door of Hector’s apartment, we were all standing by the window and watching the city at dawn. She didn’t say anything at all, but instead sat down at a typewriter and began jabbing and punching at the keys in the same way that she did before she had left, except with more fury this time.

Later when we asked her what it was like being away from New York for sixty days she didn’t say anything at all, though for a long moment she
did stop typing –––– and looked over at us. We thought she’d tell of all the news from the other side of the George Washington Bridge (Hector even set down his cup of coffee and took a seat beside her), but all she did was pick up a book of matches. We watched the strike and flame; she lit another cigarette, and then we all went back to writing.