Day 200. The other group will be contrary for the sake of rebellion.

Day 199. Playful and precocious, I have not changed.

Day 198. As she absorbed the teardrops with the silk, she felt the man watching her.

Day 198. He was smiling just for the girl. Or, that is what the girl preferred to think

Day 197. She saw their forked tongues, red-red-red, and hissed back at them.

Day 196. When the girl opened her eyes, the park had blurred. All she could see were rings of gold.

Day 195. One sip. Set the cup down. Lean back. Relight the spliff. Pause. Repeat.

Day 194. The girl had wanted to lean across the counter and kiss his wet mouth.

Day 193. Like those little birds pecking seeds until they cracked—revealing nourishment.

Day 192. This is not a story. It has no beginning and no end.

Day 191. As she walks through midnight into the next day, she suffers the tragedy of knowing she can never look back.

Day 190. What is alive in me is also the thing that is dead. I can beat it with clenched fists or receive it with open palms.

Day 189. The revelation arrived as a pack of small white pups that followed the girl from Morocco to Germany.

Day 188. The other group will be contrary just for the sake of rebellion. The girl fell into this company and whiled the hours away by being disagreeable.

Day 187. At fifty-three, Jean writes from a private jet about the things people dream about only when they are up the high in the sky.

Day 186. The final fulfillment of presence: I swallow. The birds cry out, and it rains blue-blue-blue.