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The Morgans

So my brother and I are sitting on a friend’s porch staring at this strange red house, it’s octagonal, the closest thing I’ve seen to a round house outside of architectural magazines. And I’m sitting around thinking about a poem about what kind of person lives in a round house, about how it’s a symbol for isolation or some shit like that, and I say to my brother, “What kind of person would live in a round house?” “Round houses are cool,” he says, and “Whatever” I say. And he says “Do you remember the Morgans, from when we were kids? I remember running around the Morgans’ house, it was round, and me and Sam would run laps in it. And Sarah, do you remember Sarah Morgan? Sarah would always be trying to get us to play house, or something stupid like that, you know, some girl thing. And Sam and me would always say no, we want to play something cool. So then at Sam’s funeral, Sarah didn’t recognize me at first. She just asked, ‘And you are?’ with a frozen smile on her face, like she was asking everyone that. And I said, ‘I’m Nathan.’ And her smile went away, and she burst into tears, and ran away saying, ‘I’m sorry.’” So we sat in silence for a while and he asks, “How did we get on that?” “The round house,” I say. “Oh, yeah, the round house.”