![“Joe,” by Thomas Allen. All still life photographs by Thomas Allen for Harper’s Magazine © The artist](https://harpers.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/CUT-15-e1694362095607-900x0-c-default.jpg)
“Joe,” by Thomas Allen. All still life photographs by Thomas Allen for Harper’s Magazine © The artist
i.
The whole thing started with Zeus looking down at me, tail puffed, claws gripping my chest.
What’s wrong, Big Z? I asked. Where’s your sister?
I rubbed the sand from my eyes and put it all together.
We had all fallen asleep as usual, to a video of a British Star Wars collector polishing his Imperial shuttle with a toothbrush and a can of Mr. Sheen, when at some unknown hour YouTube’s autoplay function took over. Now a man named Gary was shouting about vintage paperback novels in a…