I Feel As Though I Have Lived To See Far More Than 8,917 Sunsets

I am alone in my apartment tonight. At least until the people with whom I live arrive home.

I came home from the gym to a series of dark rooms. First the entry way. Then the living room. Then the hallway. There were various other equally dark rooms to my left and right as I made my way to my own dark room. I use "my own" loosely, as it is my own as well as Matthew's own and Sam's own. I like looking to my left and seeing Matthew's desk. A portrait of J.D. Salinger that I painted for him three Christmases ago is slightly tilted in my direction. It makes me wonder if he did that on purpose, to share our favorite author's face with me. A tube of lip balm sits to Salinger's left, and to his right is a tennis ball, only slightly dirty with a dried sea creature of some sort sitting on top. The dried sea creature is burnt orange, and upon further inspection I believe I can see a single sharp tooth protruding from what I surmise to be the front of its body. This burnt orange dried sea creature with a single sharp tooth protruding from what I surmise to be the front of its body should make me feel somewhat uneasy due to its out-of-place nature on the top of a tennis ball that sits on top of an old VCR player that sits on top of a wooden desk, but instead its jawless mouth with a single sharp tooth is screaming voicelessly, "You're home!"

Today I walked from my apartment to my school's library. I traveled to the fourth floor and sat down in Salinger's "aisle," I word I also use loosely because only a one-foot space is dedicated to a collection of both Salinger's own texts and those written by others about his texts. I looked through every option in that one-foot space, and I randomly selected a portion to read out of a text of which I have now forgotten both the author and purpose. I felt happy sitting on the floor and reading about the Glass family. My eyes burned as I thought about Seymour Glass and the moment he pulled the trigger of the gun pressed firmly to his temple. It was at that moment when I decided "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" would be the primary text I use for my thesis. I do not need to know why Seymour killed himself. There is no way to know, no way to find out. In fact, I am not sure that that short story is even necessarily about Seymour's suicide. I believe it may be more about Buddy's means of coping with Seymour's suicide. Making sense of it. Perhaps even glamorizing it. How does this story help Buddy to make sense of it? What purpose does this short story serve for Buddy? I could care less about us. Seymour is not my brother. It does not matter how much I feel Seymour is a part of me. This short story was not written, I think, to help me or you understand the death of Seymour Glass.

I went to the Seal Beach Animal Care Center today and held a cat with an infected eye. I truly believe that for a moment I thought that if I just lovingly stroked his fur for long enough the infection would disappear.