When you realize you are only a subplotin the story the day is telling, you aredevastated; it would have been betterto be everything or else nothing,but on your left front tirethe valve stem's cracked. She is runningdowntown to buy a replacementwhile you are in charge of coveringthe leak with Scotch tape, to preventthe air from bleeding outcompletely. You drift from roomto room, not remembering whereyou keep the Scotch tape. If onlyyou had taken a more thorough inventoryof your home prior to this moment,this moment might have been avoided.But your left front tire is bleeding air,even now, while you chastise yourself.If you don't find the Scotch tape soonyou will be sort of fucked, becauseyou live in the north, where the roadsare ice and snow. It's the sort of placewhere mice find your apartmentdesirable in the winter, worth riskingeverything for. They embark on voyagesinto your kitchen around 11 p.m.,where occasionally you happento be standing motionless, silentlysifting through the minutiae of somerhetorical stance. So motionless, in fact,the mouse mistakes you for furniture.You watch the mouse climb into your sink,where it finds nothing, but when it climbs outit sees you seeing it, and freezes.The loudest sound in the roomis the wall clock's beating heart.You and the mouse are both scaredin ways that are separate but connectedby the attention they pay to each other.This attention forms a bridge, althoughit is a fragile one no reasonable personwould dare walk across. It will collapsethe moment one of you turns away.