We are reading the story of our lives which takes place in a room. The room looks out on a street. There is no one there, no sound of anything. The trees are heavy with leaves, the parked cars never move. We keep turning the pages, hoping for something, something like mercy or change, a black line that would bind us or keep us apart. The way it is, it would seem the book of our lives is empty. The furniture in the room is never shifted, and the rugs become darker each time our shadows pass over them. It is almost as if the room were the world. We sit beside each other on the couch, reading about the couch. We say it is ideal. It is ideal. Mark Strand