(a friend moved into an apartment and his roommate requested postcards as a housewarming gift. this was mine.)

She stubbed her toe on a box, cursed, and kicked it apart. 18 copies of Infinite Jest fell out and streamed down the stairs with a sound like rolling thunder. Her eyes narrowed. She looked at the dozen boxes she’d just carried upstairs. She thought about the U-Haul and twin storage units. She opened a box. It was packed with DFW’s book. She opened another, and another. She frowned at box three, screamed at box six, and sobbed into box nine.

They were all the same, an infinite set of Infinite Jest. Hundreds, thousands, of copies. First printings, bootlegs, library editions, an illuminated manuscript, and more. And worse. No clothes. No toys. No joy. Only the one book, reflected eternally.

She heard her new roomie come in downstairs, grunting under the weight of his arcane copies of Infinite Jest.

She sat on a pile of books, gripped her boxcutter tight, and waited.

To be continued in “Ignorant Jest.”