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Last thing I did as a twenty-four-year-old was try to shave in the dark. I pictured all the puckerings and sneers, the facial flex, each tangled zone of beard. Stickiness mingled with the cooling foam: blood. I’d cut the pads of two fingers. Affixing Band-aids, I blamed an obsession with a man. Then I successfully blamed the man. Then I knew what a struggle the rest of my life would be.

“A Syndicate of Angels,” Northwind Magazine No. 1