Nude Men

Soon?”
    “I am a dying person.”
    “Death and dying.”
    The parrot often asks Sara, or me, or Henrietta: “Are you dying yet?” After we answer “No” or “Yes” or “Shut up,” he’ll say, “And yet? And yet?”
    To this, Sara says, “Isn’t it hi lar ious? I love it!”
     
    L aura asks me to move in with her, so she can take care of me while I take care of them. I accept gratefully. I move in and, to my astonishment, discover that she has bought big gray file cabinets to decorate her living room. These sinister file cabinets are meant to make me feel more at home by creating an environment that is familiar to me.
     
    S ara’s pain increases. It reaches such a high level that she cannot go to school. This does not upset her much; she says everyone in school already knows she’s dying, and they even started taking the idea for granted, so she’s not missing much fun.
     
    R ecently I’ve been thinking a lot about those custom-made jeweled Humpty Dumpties that Sara said she wanted. I wish I could give them to her, but obviously I can’t afford them. Not even one of them. Not even one precious eye or earring. Which I suppose is why, one night, I dream that I can, actually, afford one, in a small size, though I did pick the third one, the fanciest one, made of gold and platinum, with diamond eyes, an opal mouth, and sapphire dimples, wearing an emerald earring, a ruby necklace, and a hat of dried flowers, with yellow straw hair sticking out under.
    “It’s a lovely little egg,” says Sara, in my dream. “But he was supposed to be sitting in a crystal dish of potpourri.”
    “Oh, I totally forgot. I’m sorry. You gave me such complicated instructions.”
    “I’m not only interested in the fancy stuff, you know.”
    “I know. I didn’t forget the straw hair, did I?”
    I suppose my present has added further happiness to her Happy Symptom, because she starts singing: “I feel pretty-y-y.” She skips on one foot on the “y-y-y.”
    “Oh so pretty-y-y,” she continues, skipping on the other foot on the “y-y-y.”
    “I feel pretty and witty and gay-ay-ay-ay!” Skip skip skip skip. “La la lee lee, la la lee, la lee la lee, la lou.”
    “That’s bright,” I tell her.
    “Really, you like it?”
    “No, I mean it goes: ‘I feel pretty and witty and bright.’ ”
    “Detail. Who’s the pretty girl in that mirror there?” she screeches at the top of her voice. “What mirror where?” She is holding the back of her head with one hand, which is something she often does to prevent her brain from dribbling down her back. “Who could that—a pret-ty girl be-e? Which one where who, who, who, who, who? What a pretty girl, what a pretty girl, what a pretty girl.”
    The parrot whistles along, not daring to compete with his master’s voice.
    When she finishes her song, I tell her, “I promise you the back of your head is not open, and your brain is not dribbling down your back. You don’t need to hold your head that way.”
    “I know the dribbling is supposed to be just a special effect, but it feels so real that I can’t help it.”
    “Don’t worry, I’ll get you the crystal dish of potpourri.”
    She seems pleased. She adds my gift to the Humpty Dumpty collection in her room. She says it’s the best egg she ever had.
    I wake up and realize with sadness that I won’t be able to bring her the joy I could offer in my dream. I won’t even give her the crystal dish of potpourri, which is the only part of her request I could afford, because she doesn’t want it without the Humpty Dumpty.
     
    A week and a half later, the pain and the Happy Symptom have passed, and Sara becomes depressed that she’s dying. The other thing that happens is that I am starting to smell the fruit in her.
     
    N otice that I do not make a wish on the white elephant for Sara to live. When it comes to questions of life and death, making a wish on the white elephant is not tempting. (I have a few times in my life been faced with acquaintances’ fatal diseases and deaths, and I have never used my white elephant to try to save their lives.) If you don’t care quite enough about the person in question, it does not seem wise to ask for the interference of supernatural powers. On the other hand, in the case of a person you love very much and whom you desperately want to live, making a wish seems to trivialize a tragic situation; you feel as though you are performing a disrespectful, frivolous act. It is