It was a weird, warm, wasted winter day, quiet in an eye-of-the-storm way and Odin sat on the bench, unfocused and confused — he had just called his wife and she had complained about confusion and lack of focus, too — sort of a postapocalyptic, full-moon feeling – and unpacked the curry chicken sandwich.

The crows were already waiting. Odin could see Huginn and when he tossed him a piece of the sandwich, Muninn swooped down, landing behind the bench and Odin gave him a piece. The third crow must have been waiting too, out of sight, because it showed up seconds after that.

In just a jiffy, everyone was eating.

Odin also had some cashew nuts and cranberries in a mylar bag.

I don’t know. Quiet isn’t the right word. More like, timeless. Some days life hurries you along, but on days like this, it’s like the temporal axis has just fallen off the graph completely.

Bare branches are black against bright grey sky.

This particular universe has been behaving oddly.

Like: Odin writes in his journal about the fact that there is actually only one day in all of time, and we just keep on repeating it, just with changed hopes and regrets; and then that same evening he visits a friend and they watch Groundhog Day.

Or, Odin writes in his journal about how everything is okay, and his friend sends him a link to a button online labeled “Make Everything OK” that you press, then there’s a loading bar, then it announces that everything has been made okay.

Or, Odin is waiting for a bus and a woman asks him something about the bus, and instead of waning, their conversation grows and is interesting and when the bus comes, after half an hour, it is too soon and the woman, who is a painter visiting town from Frankfurt to look at the Lucien Freud exhibition, gives Odin a catalog of her last exhibition saying, I brought this along in case I met anyone I wanted to give it to, and I’d like you to have it.

Sometimes things just go really right, sometimes, if you let them, Odin thinks.

So, Odin is trying to figure out why, when his wife asked him if he loved his life, he almost burst into tears.

Odin loves life, and he loves many of these universes, but don’t ask him if he loves his life unless you have the time.

In fact, don’t ask him.

In fact, it reminds Odin of Apocalypse Now, when they get off the boat and a tiger attacks them in the jungle and the guy hollers, Don’t get off the boat.

What say the slain?

Same as always.

What say the hanged?

He owed me money.

He threatened me.

I didn’t even see him.

I thought he was a wild animal.