I ask the guy behind the counter if they serve vegan ice cream. He says they do, then scoops vanilla ice cream into a small cup. He smiles at me while licking the ice cream off a plastic spoon. I think he is flirting until he tells me he went searching for God but only found Lithium. I tell him I read that in 1632, in London, nearly 100 people died of something called Rising of the Lights. Which sounds like a beautiful way to go but it’s an illness of the lungs. Then he says, Actually, no—we don’t serve vegan ice cream. He says, What if you’re just a face and there’s nothing more? This is during a solar eclipse, by the way. And a solar eclipse is nothing more than the moon revealing its face. What’s the deal with this place? I ask because I’m the only customer and there is just one flavor of ice cream—vanilla. He says, You can order twelve ice creams for one penny each and they will be shipped to your home. After your first twelve ice creams, we will continue sending you ice cream in the mail, any flavor we want, every month, and you have to pay full price. I don’t know why I agree to it. It’s a terrible business plan but I’m feeling lonely in the temporary darkness. It’s like I’m back inside that giant anatomical heart I walked through on a school field trip to the science museum when everything was reduced to the sound of beating. Lub dub / lub dub / lub dub / lub dub. The ice cream shop employee hands me a form to select my twelve flavors. Right atrium / right ventricle / aorta / pulmonary artery / left ventricle / vanilla / vanilla / vanilla / vanilla / lungs / vanilla / vanilla. I had a friend who loved vanilla ice cream. I imagine myself at the cemetery on a hot day, licking it off a plastic spoon. Watching it drip down the face of his headstone. I think he’d appreciate that. But it makes me feel empty, too, you know, thinking about it: the way he is just a face now, nothing more.