The interviewer asked: if you could,
would you do it, what one thing would it be
that you might change? This is never a fair
question, because of course you know you can't.
You won't ever fit again into that size 8
sheath dress, so give it away. You won't
have gone into that other degree program;
you won't have managed to avert one
stupid decision or another. A thought
experiment is only as good as the score
you expect to get after the exam; and
as you've come to know, expectation
is a false prophet, a bad tarot card
reader who can't tell a cup from a can
of soup or a fool from his shadow.
Everywhere, someone wants a new
beginning. And everywhere, someone
wants something to end. In Long Island,
a hundred thousand ducks were recently
euthanized because of avian flu. Red-
breasted and common mergansers are washing up
dead on Lake Michigan shores. How do you rewind
to the particular moment before the needle went
haywire, before plagues were incredible stories
from a different century? You tell her you wouldn't
change a thing, though looking at what you've already
lived through from where you are now, it's like you
get to feel it all: all over again, a second time.