Summary

“A State of Variance” begins on a woman’s fortieth birthday. Starting then, the woman is unable to sleep for more than one hour per night, but she is feels fully rested during the day. She interprets this to mean that she will die at age 80, as her life has been full of strange examples of symmetry. One example is that she had a son on the day her father died. Also, her son’s face is perfectly symmetrical. This symmetry supposedly makes him physically attractive, but people actually find the perfect symmetry unnerving. The woman is a widow, and the son encourages her to begin dating. While the woman is busy with dating, the son decides to find a way to make his face less symmetrical. He asks a stranger to punch him in the face...