I was the sad Zamboni in a failed children’s book of the same name. If the author had bothered to ask, I would have told him I’d never had the hiccups. Nor have I ever fallen in love with a cow after journeying into the countryside in search of my mother. I have never prayed for a Christmas miracle, either, or been tucked in at night by a wise, elderly janitor. If he’d bothered to ask, I would’ve told him not even an airplane would mistake my soft growl for a lullaby. Sometimes, though, I imagine the rink I glide across is the milky eye of a dying angel. And once I dreamt I vanished into the African grasslands where a lion disemboweled me in the long shadow of an ancient tree. But that was just a dream. For me, loneliness is a wobbly circle. What makes me happy makes me sad. What makes me sad makes me happy. This ending is the only part he got right. My tears make the cold, flawless surface on which skating children scrawl their names.