K had a pretty wife who died of tuberculosis. They say that TB is a pretty disease (befitting a pretty wife, then). Life seeps from the body like air from an unused football; it isn’t wrenched violently from the body in the manner of any of those other afflictions that end in “plague.” Over time, the body grows pale, fragile, until it ceases to be a body and becomes a corpse. This was so in K’s pretty wife’s case. Watching her die–which he did, of course–was like watching a light bulb go out. K cried when she died.

K leaves all the lights on in his house now, and changes them every Wednesday because his pretty wife died on a Wednesday.