Grabbing Katy's Gauntlet

So, Katy threw down the literary gauntlet on Monday to describe an emotion without naming it. Of course I have to try!  See what you think, and add to it or revise it-- or try it yourself.

Was it only justice, he wondered, that ground so slowly and so exceedingly fine?

He began keeping a list of remarkable things. Or he thought he should keep a list of remarkable things, but each day he found there were fewer.

He noticed, but did not write down, how on Thursday he considered stepping out in front of a blue truck that sped in front of him as he crossed the street. But he did not write it down, because it did not seem worthy of mention. It was not the teary result of a long process of “what am I ever going to do.” In fact, it seemed at the moment quite pragmatic. It was not even a calculation of the logic. Perhaps it was an instantaneous and irresistible lining up of the pluses and minuses of it all as if even calculation had life and sentiment? No, he decided, it was just a coolness of breeze across his face and the thought, “Well, what if. . .”

Friday he did write something down. He realized that for the first time in his life, love songs were meaningless; like meat stewed too long and all that was left was its pale structure and clinging fibrousness, but whose flavor was long ago surrendered to its surroundings.

But then on Saturday, what he had written down seemed empty, and he could not summon up those feelings again. Perhaps, he dared to hope, that was remarkable. 

Perhaps, he thought, the list was not such a good idea.