Bank statements. Two coffee mugs. Three candles have yet to be burned. Sunlight comes through shades. Dust on the desk is getting whiter. An extension cord runs from the socket to the lamp. Nothing has changed in twenty-five years. Only the rent.

Every day, he sits at his desk in front of a typewriter. Papers are stacked on the side. Unopened packages of medicine in his drawers; maybe he’ll open them one day. Maybe not. He likes being in bad health. Prays for it to all be over with. He has faith in death.

And on the door hangs a rosary with a silver cross on it. Wooden beads that used to run through his fingers as he prayed to Mary. A thousand year old prayer to the savior’s mother. It just hangs there.

The old man looks at it every once in a while. Thinks of his youth. Thoughts of grace run through his head. The walls are blank.

This is not what he wanted for his life. The fat man had different ideas. He never followed logic. Nor was there a path of discipline. He just roamed from one day to the next, writing poems, reading novels, listening to Coltrane. Always hearing garbage trucks outside. Men in Mexican voices speaking to one another. He stared at the white page.

The old man would write and write till he could write no more, then read just a bit, enough to know it was no good. Black letters thrown away. Words tossed aside.

In his sleep, he dreamt of past loves. Women in and out of his life. He would wake and try to write about those dreams about those women. Again, he’d write till the wee morning hours. Again, the sun came through blinds. He looked at the rosary and threw the pages away. Prayed that just one sentence would satisfy him. But they were just words. Just words, unlike Coltrane’s notes ,which were more than just notes. To be that good, he thought. To be that good. I wonder if he ever threw anything away.