Audition

by Katie Kitamura

But over the years and in particular once I met Tomas, I had learned to curtail that urge, to see it for what it really was—a passing curiosity, a spirit of bedevilment, and a form of voyeurism.

On a normal day there would be a collection of dirty coffee cups and plates, the crusts of sandwiches, the debris of a productive day.

It meant nothing, it was a mystery to me how something so fleeting could be considered confirmed, when its meaning could dissolve, without warning, into absence.

Parts—a word that implied that there were parts and then there was a whole, into which those parts might cohere, a whole that might be a play or a film or a series, a whole that might even be a career, a body of work that could exist in the public imagination.

This was not in and of itself so unusual, but there was a desperation, a shoddiness, to the way it was being done that was new.

because of course I needed him, I needed Tomas, much more than he needed me, and this had always been the case, whether I was able to admit it or not. It was him, and it was always going to be him.