There was the picture of the automobile executive, not quite prone on the carpeted stage but looking like he was rolling on his side, or bouncing, his hands near his head for protection. Near him was a new blue car, one of his, undoubtedly. The headline said he fainted. I guess it was all too much.

I’ve developed some kind of allergy to my deodorant. Old Spice. The kind they say, if your grandpa didn’t wear it you wouldn’t exist. Ha ha, so funny. Who knows what satanic chemicals it contains. Aluminum, I guess. The natural ones don’t, so I assumed that was the culprit. All I know is my armpits became furiously itchy at the end of each day. When I stopped using it the itching went away in equal measure to the emergence of that salty, suffocating thing: the odor of my own body. So now I’m backing into some “natural” product, aluminum-free. Not because I want to. Because I have to.