Temporary

by Hilary Leichter

Please ma’am, have a pamphlet. Take it in your hand and pull it through your door and put it away. Forget about it for a year, then remember and find it in a folder full of takeout menus and old to-do lists. Struggle to read the pamphlet and struggle to touch the pamphlet. “Ouch!” you’ll say. “I can’t deal with this right now!” you’ll say. “It hurts in a way I can’t describe!” Put the pamphlet back into the folder, put the folder away, and label the folder IMPORTANT, then repeat those steps year after year, new haircut, new house, new husband, new haircut, new car, new husband, until the pamphlet softens with creases and pressure from piles of pamphlets, piles of tasks nearly complete, in a box of documents for sorting, a box of documents for shredding. Then finally shred the pamphlet, because you can’t throw the pamphlet away, not ever, because you throw away only things that are useless. And though you’re not certain of the pamphlet’s use, you know the pamphlet is useful. You know it’s important. You’ve felt it working on your life, a silent sacred work, a life guided by possession of the pamphlet. And though you’re not sure why, you know you’ve been changed by the presence of this slip of paper, this slip that somehow hurts, that cuts, that has no use except to remind you of something (what?), of someplace (where?), of your first husband sitting on the porch the day the pamphlet first fell into your hands. No use except to convince you, over and over, that you’ll probab...