Dept. of Speculation

by Jenny Offill

My plan was to never get married. I was going to be an art monster instead. Women almost never become art monsters because art monsters only concern themselves with art, never mundane things. Nabokov didn’t even fold his own umbrella. Vera licked his stamps for him.

The Zen master Ikkyu was once asked to write a distillation of the highest wisdom. He wrote only one word: Attention. The visitor was displeased. “Is that all?” So Ikkyu obliged him. Two words now. Attention. Attention.