My date sits across from me at the restaurant and tells me that I am more compact than he expected. I don't meet his specifications, but I wasn't aware of them. I have always been compact. To get my mind off this short-coming, I ask him what his specifications are again, since I missed them the first time around. Oh, he says, I like height, I like weight, I like hairy, I like not hairy, I like not compact. While I'm listening, and this is beyond my control, my self un-compacts and tumbles out of me, unfurls with great force like a bright paper streamer, and startles both of us. It knocks everything off the table and spreads out all over the restaurant, unfurling and unfurling. My date is embarrassed and runs around trying to contain it with his hands, but it's hard to control physically. It's too mushy and can't be pushed back into me. People are looking at him, not me, because now he's taken it upon himself to gather me up and put me away if he can, which he can't. He fails.
   
"It's too much," he shouts, his hands full of useless stuff. "I don't want all of this!"
   
"I'm sorry," I say. "There's nothing I can do about it."


.

Richard Mirabella's debut novel is forthcoming from Catapult. He lives in upstate New York.

Read RM's postcard.





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