Audio: Camille Bordas reads.

I slept through the burglary. I considered lying about this to the cops when I went to report it, but you don’t lie to the police. It’s like doctors: they can’t help you if you lie to them. I mean, I don’t always tell my doctor the whole truth, but that’s because my doctor happens to be an old friend—some things are just too embarrassing to tell your friends.

One cop asked if I was unemployed, since I had been taking a nap on a Thursday morning.

“I’m an ophthalmologist,” I said. “My schedule varies a lot.”

She looked at my glasses suspiciously, as if they contradicted what I’d just told her, as if an ophthalmologist were required to have perfect vision. I wear contacts when I work, because patients tend to feel the same way.

I told her everything that had been stolen. Most of my living room and a bit of the kitchen were gone: laptop and flat-screen, of course, sound system, but also the Eames chair, the four Hans Wegner Wishbone dining chairs, the two Moroccan rugs I’d brought back from Fez, the two pieces of jewelry I always put on the marble side table (gone as well) when I came home, the china. I didn’t care much for the china, and I never used it—it was a gift my parents had received on their wedding day, and the marriage had failed—but I knew it was worth something.

“And an optometrist’s case,” I said. “An antique from the thirties.”

“Does that have any kind of resale value?” the cop asked.

I said that all the trial lenses had been in mint condition, that someone might pay a thousand, twelve hundred, maybe, but that mostly it was of sentimental value, since it had been my grandfather’s. I’d never met my grandfather, but I omitted that part.

“That’s a widely varied set of items,” the cop said, reading over her list. “Either the guy knew exactly what he was going to find or he was pleasantly surprised.”

Out of curiosity, I asked if people often slept through burglaries. I hadn’t taken a pill, by the way—I’m just a heavy sleeper. People are always amazed at my ability to fall (and stay) asleep at parties, through construction in the building, at condo meetings. I’m convinced that this corresponds to some ancient tribal trait, some remnant of a time when human activity around you meant safety, that it was safe to sleep, that someone was looking out for the group. My mother says that it’s a nice thought, but that I shouldn’t trust “human activity” to mean “friendly activity,” I should be more wary, have less faith in people. I guess the burglary would prove her point—but then what? There aren’t any pills against sleeping too well.

“It happens,” the cop said. “Not often, but it happens.”

I wondered if they had come into the bedroom. How long they’d watched me sleep before deciding it was safe to carry on. The cop had used the singular, but I pictured two burglars, minimum, what with all the heavy lifting. Mostly, it was worse to imagine only one guy.

When I came home, my cat, Catapult, gave me hell and followed me around from room to room to make sure that I wouldn’t miss any of her grievances.

“You could’ve summoned some of that bitchiness earlier, when they came in to steal your bed,” I told her. The blue Moroccan rug had been her favorite napping surface. “It’s a bit late to make a federal case of it now.”

Catapult screamed louder whenever I spoke, so I didn’t argue with her any further. Also, yes, I talk to my cat. I think the weird thing is not to talk to your pet. Or to expect your pet to answer you. Or to talk to your pet when someone else can hear. I’m not insane. I know the cat matters to me and only to me, so I won’t talk about Catapult too much, only when relevant to the story. In fact, maybe I can reveal all of Catapult’s arc right now and be done with it: Catapult was not screaming because she missed her fluffy Moroccan rug. (She could sleep on anything, even atop the cast-iron radiator, when it wasn’t burning hot, her body sagging into the crenels.) She was pissed because we no longer had a TV. It took me some time to accept it, but that’s what it was. Catapult missed Netflix and Larry David, and that was the long and the short of it.

I was late to my 3 P.M. appointment, because the locksmith thought that I was interested in his life story. It was, in fact, somewhat interesting—his father murdered by his mother, lots of travelling—I just didn’t need all the details. As I walked the patient into my office, my secretary handed me his file. I’m usually able to read a patient’s file and still catch, out of the corner of my eye, what kind of state he’s in, but I got nothing from Mr. Simmons. It was like having a log wearing glasses in my peripheral vision.

In his file I had noted, “State of nature guy.” I remembered him.

“Mr. Simmons,” I said. “Coming in to see if your eyesight’s remained stable enough the past twelve months for you to try Lasik?”

“That is correct,” he said.

“Remind me again why you want Lasik so badly?”

I didn’t need to be reminded. I just enjoyed hearing it.

“I don’t want to depend on glasses anymore,” Simmons explained. “They make you look weak, and I don’t want to look weak. I want to be ready and have perfect vision when the world collapses—or just the banking system—and we have to go back to the state of nature.”

“Right!” I said. “The state of nature.”

His eyes shone behind his glasses when I said the words. It had to have been his dream since childhood.