The Ocean's Surprise. And a book of poems: The Bargain. The author of this book of poems, who was very fat, had a son who did nothing but play at writing poetry. The son's poetry was so full of rhymes, it looked as if he had been taught it by people who knew it. He even invented poems that contained words like "and," "the," and "thee," and "me" and "my." And at the end of his poems, he used the word "surprise." As far as I can tell, all his poems are about being surprised. He once, in the middle of a poem, wrote: The ocean was surprised. His poems were so easy to understand that sometimes I wonder why he made them that hard for us to understand. But once I went into a bookstore and he was not only selling this book of poems about the ocean's surprise but he was selling a book of poems about the ocean's surprise. There was one poem in that book about the ocean's surprise, and when I got to the end of it, I didn't know what the surprise was. If that poet had not been so fat, he would not have been surprised to see me in the bookstore and would not have been surprised to see my question mark looking at him. That fat poet, that wonderful poet of mine, wrote many books. He wrote a book called The Surprise Book and The Surprise Book for Children, and another one about a fat man. And another book of poems, this time called Funny Rhymes. When I saw those rhymes, I thought there might be some words in them that I did not know. I said: "Where does the rhyme come from?" He said: "The Surprise Book for Children, Surprise Two." I said: "Do you have that one?" He said: "Of course I have it." "Have you read it?" "No, I wrote it," he said. "I wrote it for my son and his friends. They really liked it. I think I'm a good poet. I have lots of friends." "Will you show it to me?" "No, it's not for sale. And you know what? The Surprise Book and the Surprise Book for Children and the Surprise Book About Rhymes—you can't get those three books at the same time. That's a secret." "Why not?" "Because, I'd like to sell them all at the same time." I did not know what to say to that. Then he said: "Do you know why you've never seen them before? They're all out of print." "Do you have any more poems?" I said. "Of course, and you want to see them? How many times do you want me to read them to you?" "How many times do you want me to read them to you?" "I don't know." "How many times do you want me to read them to you?" "I don't know." "How many times do you want me to read them to you?" "Yes," he said. "Yes," I said. "How many times do you want me to read them to you?" "Yes." "Yes," I said. "How many times do you want me to read them to you?" "Yes," he said, and it was like a game between us, yes and yes and yes, each of us saying yes. He gave me the book. I turned the pages, and I kept saying yes. He held the book and I held the book. "What about us?" he said. "What about us?" I said. "What about us?" he said. "What about us?" I said. And then, holding the book between us, with our hands pressed against its front cover, we read the poem about the ocean's surprise. That is the story of the surprise. ## The Night Before I Got the Job I was having dinner with my girlfriend, and I was telling her a story. I had just gotten a job, and I was telling her how I had left a bar, that I had walked home that afternoon, and I had put my key in my front door, which is also my mailbox key. I said: "There's something about the way things were that I haven't figured out yet." She said: "About your key?" I said: "No." She said: "I don't know what you mean." I said: "Sometimes I wonder if people know when they've found the right one, the one who's got everything." She said: "You?" I said: "Me." She said: "It was a moment of absolute contentment, of course." "Yes," I said. "The thing that matters is that I found it." "How did you find it?" she asked. "I found it, in a way." "What do you mean?" she said. "I still don't understand." "I don't know how to explain it, that's the trouble," I said. "I think I've lived before. I think I lived before." "You do?" she said. "You've lived before? I never thought I'd hear you say that." "But I do know things," I said. "I knew about the job. I had forgotten things. I had things about me that people don't know, about my character. I had forgotten how to be a baby, and how to be a baby again." She was looking at me and smiling, and then she said: "I still don't understand." I said: "I found the right key." "What's the right key?" she said. "The key," I said. "A good key is a real treasure, and it's a good key when everything in your life fits with it." "What about the thing that doesn't fit?" she said. "It's really a problem when the thing doesn't fit, but it's the best possible kind of problem, I think," I said. "If you find yourself at a moment when your life just doesn't match up with the key that you've found, you have no choice but to live with what you have. If you've got something that doesn't fit, you've got a problem." "You know what I think?" she said. "I think you've discovered the key to how it feels to be happy. And I know what the problem is. You have to meet the right person to make the key fit." "That's it," I said. "That's right." I held out my key and held out her key. They were our keys. "What about me?" she said. "Did you think I was the right person? Was I the key?" "Absolutely," I said. "You are the key." ## My Father Is Watching After lunch, after lunch was over, when we were eating the sandwich, when we were eating the sandwich that he cut for her in half with the meat knife, my father picked up the knife and said to me: "You cut this sandwich in half." I was eating my sandwich and I said: "Yes." "Are you going to cut it in half?" he said. "Yes." He said: "You don't know how to cut a sandwich in half. You're not a man. You don't have the heart for it." And he held the knife over the loaf of bread and then he held it over the plate and he said: "Cut." "I'm not going to cut it in half." "I'm not sure you even understand what you are to do," he said. "Cut the sandwich in half." "I know what I'm going to do," I said. "I'm going to cut the sandwich in half, and then I'm going to put it back together again." "How is that possible?" he said. "I'm not sure you understand what I mean." "I understand," I said. "But I want to cut it in half and I don't want to put it back together again." He said: "You are only looking for trouble. You are only looking for trouble." I said: "That's right. I am only looking for trouble. And that's why I'm not doing it. Because I'm looking for trouble. But there's no reason for me to look for trouble. There's no reason for me to cut the sandwich in half." "I could explain it to you," he said, "but you never listen to me." "You could explain it to me," I said, "but I never listen to you." "Look," he said, "you don't listen to me." "I listen to you. I just don't want to hear it." "Look," he