Dana Lustery -

At 11:00 PM on December 21st, Dana Lustery does not prepare for bed. She puts on her heaviest coat. She takes one of the fresher oranges from the counter—#61—and places it in her coat pocket. She does not drive. She takes a city bus, then a train. She arrives at the Greyhound station in Omaha at 1:45 AM. It smells of stale coffee, floor wax, and lost time.

Day three: same.

She spends the day in her apartment, surrounded by 63 rotting oranges. She looks at her life: the efficient job, the quarterly dinners, the salmon on Monday. It is not a life. It is a long, well-organized sentence with no punctuation. Leo’s life, for all its mess, has exclamation points. It has question marks. It has a door in a bus station bathroom. dana lustery

Dana Lustery is 47, a senior data harmonization consultant for a global logistics firm. She lives in a minimalist, high-floor condo in a city that experiences all four seasons with punctual regularity. Dana is not cold, but she is exacting . Her friends (she has three, whom she sees on a quarterly rotation) describe her as “reliably steady.” Her colleagues describe her as “efficient to the point of invisibility.” She describes herself as “content.” At 11:00 PM on December 21st, Dana Lustery

The Gravity of Oranges

Dana, the woman who harmonizes global supply chains, cannot explain a piece of fruit. She does not drive