This Book Will Save Your Life

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HE STANDS at the glass looking out. The city spreads below him, blanketed in foggy slumber. Low pressure. Clouds roll over the hills, seeping out of cracks and crevices as if the geography itself is sending smoke signals.

Below him, far down the hill, a woman swims, her long brown hair floating through the water. Her suit is a beautiful bright-red dot, a rare tropical bird in a pool of unnatural blue. Every morning she swims — crawls like an Olympian. He takes comfort in her swimming, in her determination, rhythm, routine, in the fact that she is awake when he is awake. There is urgency in her stroke; she cannot not swim. She is his confidante, his muse, his mermaid.

He is at the glass; usually he is not here, not now. Usually he gets up and gets on his machine — he runs while she swims. He runs watching the electronic ticker tape go by, trading from a keyboard strapped to the treadmill, typing as he trots, placing his bets, going long and short, seeing how far up or down he can go, riding an invisible electronic wave.

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