Cora sat on her kitchen counter eating corn from a can.

“What are you doing?” her roommate Peach asked.  “What is our life right now?”

Cora brought her legs up so she was perched on the counter and Peach got her phone out and started filming.

“Wednesday, November 13^th, 2013, 3am,” Peach said into the camera.  “Cora is eating corn from a can.”

“I don’t know if I ate today,” said Cora.  “I’ve been trying to be super thin.”

“You are thin.”

“But I mean like a heroin addict.”

The rest of their house was quiet.  The people who lived upstairs and the people who lived downstairs and the people who lived in the basement all had to be awake for work in a few hours.  Cora and Peach had walked home from the bar down side streets past houses with their lights out and garbage cans brought to the curb to be emptied.

“That was a good night,” Peach kept saying.  “That was such a good night.”

They had gotten separated at some point.  Cora had wanted to go to bed early, but instead of going home after the first bar, she went to Bar Neon and then Three Speed.  When she finally did make it back onto the street after last call, there was Peach, watching her friends smoke outside Duffy’s like they’d planned on meeting up all along.

“Look at the moon,” Peach had said.  They’d walked home past warehousesturned lofts and the Nestle chocolate factory at the edge of Toronto.

“It looks like a soft boiled egg,” said Cora.

“You’re right, it really does.”  It really did.

At Bar Neon, Cora and her friend Danielle had pretended they were successful artists living in Brooklyn.

“There’s some art party we were invited to in Manhattan tonight,” Danielle had said.  “I think Tao Lin is going to be there.”

“I don’t know,” Cora had said.  “It’s a bit of a trek, and I’ve got a meeting with my publisher in the morning.  There’s a lot of pressure now that I signed this half-a-million dollar book deal.”

“I know what you mean.  Promotion for this new movie I’m starring in opposite Ryan Gosling is taking up so much of my time.”

But now Cora was home.  She was living in Toronto, and Peach was still filming her.

“Turn that off,” said Cora.  “It makes me feel awkward.”  She was done her corn now, and she spun the empty can on her spoon.

“But I want to remember this,” said Peach.  “We should have a record of this best and most beautiful night.”

Outside, the streets of Toronto were stretched as cold and flat as the palm of a hand.  Cora could feel the snow rolling in.  Soon the city would be a white fist in a winter glove, and everyone’s heart would be hidden under sweaters and zipped into goose down jackets.

She held onto the counter and looked directly into the camera and said, “Wednesday, November 13^th, 2013, 3:28am, the best and most beautiful night.”