Desperate Asylum

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Emerson Page thought about the girl waiting upstairs, and wished very much that he was up there with her. The girl’s name was Edwina and Emerson’s thinking of her was always pleasant and frequently glandular.

Edwina, whose name was lovingly abbreviated to Ed, was Emerson’s wife, and at this moment he was wanting her very much, and he knew that she wanted him also. He regretted that this was not possible, or at least not practicable at the moment, but he consoled himself with the assurance that it would later be both.

The time was eight o’clock of a Saturday night in November. The place was the kitchen of a small restaurant and bar of distinction, of which Emerson was owner, in the town of Corinth, which was not in Greece. Emerson stepped out of the kitchen, where he had just eaten his own dinner, into the dining room, where he stopped and looked around and was conscious of a familiar warm diffusion of pride in his work and his accomplishment. It was not a large dining room, but it was relaxed and pleasant and good for the digestion. The napery was snowy. The silver and crystal caught and reflected the light from the ceiling. The woodwork was fine walnut, shining softly as satin. On the beige carpet from wall to wall, the footsteps of patrons and waitresses fell without sound. It was a nice room, and he had raised it like an only child from a short-order diner, and he was very proud.

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