There is a southern hairy-nosed wombat living on the East Side. I'm not going to say which street. He is missing his right back leg and his left front foot, and he asked that I not use his name, so I won't. His kind is from the dry country of South Australia, where it is the state animal and lives in long shared burrows dug with the front feet, and it is nocturnal by nature, which is worth knowing for what follows. I walked over. He walks faster than I do.

You get up around eleven.

Around eleven.

That's late for a person and early for a wombat.

I'm neither anymore. I'm on the East Side.

What happens at eleven?

I wake up. I get to the top of the stairs — there are stairs — and I say to myself: this is the best day of my life.

Every day.

Every day.

Is that something you're trying to believe?

No. I say it because I know it. Trying would be different. I'd be able to tell.

How do you know it?

(He looked at me for a while.) Because I woke up. That's most of it. The rest I'm not going to explain to a newspaper.

I was going to ask about the leg.

You were.

I've forgotten what I was going to ask about it.

That's all right. Most people ask how. I'd rather they asked what for, and nobody does.

What for?

Getting to the top of the stairs.

Do you still dig?

You dig with the front. I've got one. I have a place; I don't need another one. When I sit, I sit with my back to the door — you'll have noticed. That's not about the leg. Every wombat does that. The back is the strong part. Nothing gets past it.

Do you miss the night?

I was made for it. But you can't say this is the best day of my life at three in the morning. It doesn't sound right. Eleven sounds right.

Is there anything you'd want the paper to say?

Say I asked you not to use my name, and you didn't. That's the whole of it.

I walked home. It took a while; it does. I got to the top of my own stairs sometime after one, and I said it. I'm not there yet, the way he is. Then I sat down with my back to the door.