I refused to finish the bottle of sake she brought over.

I didn’t like her much, and neither did she care for me. We were bored, worn out by too much solitude. So I cooked her dinner, touched her elbow. She left before dark and before I could touch her in better places.

“Keep the sake,” she said with false candor.

“Gladly,” I replied, flatly.

Alone in my apartment, I snatched up the glimmering green bottle of alcohol, held it close. My distorted reflection mocked my equally distorted existence.

Then, following protocol, I wrote her name on the bottle before putting it in the refrigerator with the other unfinished bottles of refrigerated alcohol other women had brought over and left behind. Countless kinds of cheap white wine, expensive vermouth, decently sophisticated beer, pretentious red wine. Now fancy sake.

I examined each bottle, touched carefully and purposefully each bottle, as though handling the delicate women whose feminine names adorned each bottle.

Satisfied that my record of romantic failures was still in tact, and indeed growing, I closed the refrigerator and spent the night – just like every night – curled up next to it, lulled to sleep by its gentle and accusatory hum.