The Story of the Week

by Joshua Mehigan

Experience was nothing that day. That day was Sunday.   It was impossible to transcend the Western Tradition of Sunday. But he did not demand a better world.   This he left to the moon, the moon’s day, Monday.   Saturday he was maudlin, and may have been in love. Friday he got phone calls, but wasn’t there to answer.   Wherever he was he was not falling in love.   Thursday was bunk. The sack of his heart emptied. Wednesday was symmetry, a thimbleful of nothing.   What seemed most decisive, redemptive, was Tuesday. Suffering really meant something to him then.   Monday, last Monday, he felt sure he’d found the catch in the course of circular motion.   Sunday he did not demand a better world.

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From The Optimist, Ohio University Press, 2004, by JOSHUA MEHIGAN.