Leila Allison has just made my head hurt with this re-run submission. Not because of her choice of story – it’s a cracker – but because of – well – this is what she said:

This selection is the result of a science. As I write this, LS has completed its 218th week. So I cut that sum in half and got week 114. I was a Liberal Arts major, of course, which means I refused to admit the possibility of a mathematical error on my part and instead quietly subtracted 5 from 114, and pretended to have week 109 all along.

To finalize this selection, I consulted the nearest mammal. If I awaken my cat Miss Izzy from her afternoon nap for no food-related reason at all, she reacts with a heartfelt slap to my hand within one to five seconds; she tattooed the back of my left hand on the count of four. Thus this week’s rerun, story four, week 114–I mean 109, is brought to you by a process only slightly less random and violent than the machinations of the Universe.

It is important that I state, right here, if I had hated The Apartment Non by Darryl Graff, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Instead, I had driven myself to a melancholy little thing that I had liked very much and had commented on when it was first published. Perhaps God’s Hand was involved in this all along, and that it was His Will that this fine piece should see light again. Who’s to say? Dunno about God’s Hand, but I need to put a dab of Neosporin on the one that dared to stir Miss Izzy.

Leila Allison

***

The Apartement Non