As for myself, I'd rather not say very much. When I breathe, the air feels good in my chest. And when I think of the mirrored room, as of course I still do, I understand now that it's empty, filled with chimeras like Charlotte Swenson--the hard, beautiful seashells left behind long after the living creatures within have struggled free and swum away. Or died. Life can't be sustained under the pressure of so many eyes. Even as we try to reveal the mystery of ourselves, to catch it unawares, expose its pulse and flinch and peristalisis, the truth has slipped away, burrowed further inside a dark, coiled pirvacy that replenishes itself like blood. It cannot be seen, much as one might wish to show it. It dies the instant it is touched by light.


Once or twice a year I still call my old voice mail, just to see if the outgoing message is the one I recorded myself. My hand shakes as I dial the phone, and I wonder who will answer.
"Hi, it's me," comes the childish, cigarette voice from the digital void. "Leave a message, but keep it short."
"Hello," I say. "It's me."


- from Look At Me, by Jennifer Egan