Dept. of Speculation

by Jenny Offill

I felt a sudden chill and pulled the blanket over my head. That’s the way they bring horses out of a fire, I remembered. If they can’t see, they won’t panic. I tried to figure out if I felt calmer with a blanket over my head. No I did not was the answer.

You think that the mental anguish you are experiencing is a permanent condition, but for the vast majority of people it is only a temporary state.

To live in a city is to be forever flinching.

You know what’s punk rock about marriage? All the puke and shit and piss.

We used to call her Little. Little, come here, we’d say. Little, unhand the cat, but then one day she won’t let us. “I am big,” she says and her face is stormy.

Of course it is difficult. You are creating a creature with a soul, my friend says.

Anger looked like fireworks. Love was an indistinct blur.

“Mommy! You are not noticing. I am using a new word. I say autumn now instead of fall.”

“Do you know why I love you?” my daughter asks me. She is floating in the bathwater, her head lathered white. “Why?” I say. “Because I am your mother,” she tells me.

A few nights later, I secretly hope that I might be a genius. Why else can no amount of sleeping pills fell my brain? But in the morning my daughter asks me what a cloud is and I cannot say.

“Of guinea pigs eating a watermelon.” What Kant said: What causes laughter is the sudden transformation of a tense expectation into nothing.

Evolution designed us to cry out if we are being abandoned. To make as much noise as possible so the tribe will come back for us.

A man is standing on the bank of a river when it suddenly begins to flood. His wife and his mistress are both being swept away. Who should he save? His wife. (Because his mistress will always understand.) 2. A man is standing on the bank of a river when it suddenly begins to flood. His wife and his mistress are both being swept away. Who should he save? His mistress. (Because his wife will never understand.)

She thinks before she acts. Or more properly, she thinks instead of acts. A character flaw, not a virtue.

But when she is alone, the objects around her bristle with intent.

What Rilke said: Surely all art is the result of one’s having been in danger, of having gone through an experience all the way to the end, to where no one can go any further. 44 I’m hungry.