In November of 2004, I didn’t write a novel. This is a series of excerpts from all the novels I didn’t write that month.

Sometimes what I crave more than anything are the keys. He used to say that he loved they way they sounded when he tossed them. Like singing. Their collisions in the arc of air shivered down the metal and that shimmer of sound landed flat in his palm.

I would lay them out on the table. Rows of keys thunked methodically so I could compare the teeth, could run my finger along the varying grooves. I was searching for the similarities.

She never understood. She only cared about latches and locks. Ways to make tumblers impassable without keeping anyone out. My bird of paradox.

There had to have been a crisis. Amid all those lockless keys and keyless locks, there must have been a clash. A clanging. A doorbell. Some sort of chaotic alert. There couldn’t have been only a light chinging as she slid the key under the door and rid herself of all access to my life.