Asymmetry

by Lisa Halliday

There chafes a sense that the world does not understand him, does not appreciate him, and so he must remake it into a world that does. Domination is not merely a fantasy but also a form of revenge for his status as a failure, a subordinate, “an outcast among outcasts”—

But what did you think, from day to day? What were you conscious of? What

did you say? Whom did you run into, on the street or in the gym, and how did these encounters reinforce or interfere with the idea of yourself that you carry around?

it would be more accurate to say I enjoyed running less than I enjoyed how running later made me feel. Still, there were immediate pleasures, namely the solitude, and the sense of myself as a person in motion,

watch the indifferent pavement flowing under my feet and feel overwhelmed by the immense distance I’d put between myself and home.

metaphysical claustrophobia and bleak fate of being always one person.

A problem, I suppose, that it is entirely up to our imaginations to solve.

Joyce’s Ulysses,