I prayed for the city to be cleared of people, for the gift of being alone…which is the one New York prayer that rarely gets lost or delayed in channels, and in no time at all everything I touched turned to solid loneliness.

More from Nine Stories

• Life is a gift horse in my opinion.
• She was a girl who for a ringing phone dropped exactly nothing. She looked as if her phone had been ringing continually ever since she reached puberty.
• I am kind of a paranoiac in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy.
• I wish…you could read letters you wrote 46 years ago. It is very painful reading.