I declare war on the mouse. Spend hours clearing out hidden corners and lining the kitchen with traps, eliminate even the smallest crumb from every surface. But the truth is he has already won, because at every moment am I not thinking of him? With every creak in the old tenement, do I not crane my neck to find any shadow of movement along the floorboards? Ghosts will kill us when the actual monsters never could.
The neighbor upstairs and I speak about it in the stairwell, after I have interrupted her uncomfortable first date goodbyes at the front door, another pest she couldn't get rid of. We are all just trying our best to make it through another day in one piece. I went to a street in Brooklyn and heard myself say this place has changed so much since I lived here but by now it's been 12 years since I did, and did you not think the world would move on? In 16 days, it will be 15 years since I first came here. He says I guess you're a real New Yorker now, and I don't know how to tell him I've had this conversation so many times before that it can no longer hurt me. I am not, without this city, and on its streets, I am everything; you think your rule book can take that from me?
It occurs to me that I am arguing with myself.
There was less of that when you were here. But I don't think it matters anymore.
You're not here now. And I still am.
Who else am I supposed to talk to?
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