"I once owned thirty-seven acres of land," the stranger told me over a glass of warm whiskey. "Thirty-seven! Can you imagine it?"
"I can try,"I told him. "You want me to try?"
"Try," he said. "Go ahead and just try."
I tried. "No, I can't imagine it."
"It was all because of the old Postmaster General. Remember Mr. Malü Peabody? He saw my land one day. He said, 'Mr. Doctor-Mister, you've got a mighty fine parcel of land there,' he said, and I said, 'You're right, Mr. Malü Peabody. I got this land ten years ago in a bar bet over which lizard would eat a fly first.' I said, 'We had to find some lizards first, which was quite a problem, let me tell you.' I said, 'We found three, but we needed four, and by the time we found the fourth, the second one had died, so we needed to find a fifth one to replace that, and then by the time—'"
"I did it,"I said.
"Did what?"
"Imagined it. All thirty-seven acres. I imagined it all."I shrugged. "It wasn't that great."
He swigged his whiskey, all in one bristly motion, and he looked me in the eye, and he said, "Fuck you," and left.
