Summary

In “Perfect Symmetry,” the man cooked meticulously. He was pleased with what he made although he would be killed that night.

“Twenty-seven had marked” the man and “ordered him killed” (68). He was unsure how it had happened, but it “became clear” when “nobody let him sit at their table” and everyone “stopped talking to him” (68). Although he “didn’t mind being ignored,” the man hated that Twenty-seven’s order kept him from “the only space where he experienced well-being”: the kitchen (69).

The guards gave the man a final wish, as they did anyone “marked by Twenty-seven” (69). The man requested to make a final recipe. The guards obliged him. Being in the kitchen made the man happy. Just as he finished the dish, someone “cut his throat” from behind (73). His blood on the plate made the dish “unique, perfect” (73).

In “The...