For as long as it takes the woman in Kyoto to write this paragraph, this litany of words, this laundry list of punctuation, you will have finished your cigarette in the bar in Vienna that sells Australian beer. For as long as it takes the man in Ishikawa to eat his sushi off a naked woman lying on the buffet table of a fashionable restaurant, your wife will have finished ironing the spotless white shirt she bought on sale at a Sears in Des Moines.

Bio: Linda Nemec Foster