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me, emergencies are distant sounds …”—argh,
distant
, an adjective, a scale—“I hear from inside a glass cage.” That has to go, zip, all of it.
    So what are we left with?
    I bring home sirens from my nights
. Paragraph.
They blend around the hospital. When they park in the back, I can hear them from my night-watchman’s box. My thoughts go no farther thanthat. Emergencies are sounds I hear from inside a glass cage
. Paragraph.
    Not one word too many. A single comma, after the parking lot in the back, which is death. Raymond, I’m starting to like you.
    *
    Hello, Lorraine? It’s me. Don’t wait up.
RAYMOND
    I can’t hear you. I can’t hear you very well. I’m … The telephone’s right next to the coffeemaker. No, a diner on the highway.
    Raymond, yes. Paula gave … A friend gave me your message. I just got it.
    We’ve met, you know. We used to work for the same editor. School textbooks, right. I compiled excerpts from short stories. But the company did some reshuffling and I got laid off. It’s me, Raymond. May I call you Douglas?
    Right, I’ve sent you some … I’ve sent you a bunch of stories. Ten at least, maybe twenty. Yes, I should have mentioned it. I didn’t think you … I didn’t think you’d remember who I was.
    You read one? Which? “Who Needs Air?” Mm-hmm. Ah. But you’re calling it what? “Compartment.” Sure, why not? “The Compartment,” then. Oh, I see. A single word. “Compartment.”
    So you’re accepting it? I can’t hear you. I’m sorry, it’s the coffee ma—
    What do you mean, “No”?
    Why are you cutting it if you’re not going to accept it?
    Well, what are you taking out, exactly? Then … then what are you
keeping
? The argument. Nothing but the argument? You reduced the first three pages to a paragraph? And that doesn’t work. Mm-hmm.
    But then don’t take it, I don’t give a shit. How much? You’re paying twice as much as …? I see. Yeah.
    So you would cut the end. You’d cut the beginning and the end. Yes, it would be shorter like that. How far in? But that’s the middle! That’s right in the middle of the argument! “Always cut off arguments in the middle.” No, I’ve never heard that. And your students listen to you? Well yes, of course, that means there’s less to write. If they all stop in the middle …
    Hello? Mr. Douglas?
    God damn it.
    *
    Hello, it’s me, it’s Raymond. We were cut off. You hung up? You were finished. That was all you wanted to tell me? No, I’m going to sell it somewhere else. All right, I’ll think about it. Yes, I’ll send you others. I’ve got a whole raft of arguments. They’re my specialty. And thanks! Asshole.
RAYMOND
    There aren’t any blinds on the windows in this motel. I lie unmoving, with my eyes wide open. The neon sign projects a turquoise-blue light onto the ceiling. Unless it’s the reflection of the swimming pool.
    I call up Marianne every hour. I leave a message and wait for her to pick up. When she does, even if she doesn’t say anything, even if she just breathes into the phone, I’ll know I can go back home.
    I can’t sleep. I turn on the TV. A film about a blind skater, a young girl. The story’s easy to follow, with or without the sound. But my thoughts are elsewhere. I’m thinking about “Compartment.” I don’t call it “Who Needs Air?” anymore. I imagine my story in Douglas’s version.
    The one that stops in the middle.
    “Close the window, Robin.”
    “It’s stifling in here.”
    “Close the window, the kids are going to catch colds.”
    She stubs out her cigarette. While she’s lighting up another one—the ashtray is overflowing, how can she have any left?—I pivot and lift the window higher.
    “I’m stifling, me!”
    When I turn around, there’s no anger on her face. She comes close to me. Cigarette in hand, she puts her arms around me and lays her forehead against my chest.
    I hear the TV, the muffled voices, and a crying child.
    “Theo,” I