Tenth of December

This story takes the form of a series of diary entries written in stilted, ungrammatical style for “future generations.” The writer has recently turned 40 and purchased the diary with the intention of writing one page a day beginning on September 3rd, but immediately misses a day because the bumper fell off of his car while picking up his three children from school. The kids—Eva, Lilly, and Thomas—are upset about the bumper as it reveals they are poor. The narrator is sad and wonders when he will live in luxury, as he has “always had a feeling that this and other good things will happen for us!” (112).

The next day, the family goes to a birthday party for Leslie Torrini, a friend of Lilly’s. The house is an extravagant mansion filled with things like plasma TVs, expensive cars, and a “bridge flown in from China” (112). In the yard is an arrangement of Semplica Girls (called SGs), who are living yard decorations that are suspended from microline and often hail from impoverished nations. The young women have the microline surgically threaded through their brains so they can strung on the line like ornaments. Lilly wants to see them, but Eva declines.