Chap­ter V begins with Hen­ry wak­ing up in his New York City apart­ment on the morn­ing of Sep­tem­ber 5, 2013, feel­ing the sharp dis­com­fort of a hang­over, a phys­i­cal reminder of a night marred by emo­tion­al tur­moil and a painful rejec­tion from his girl­friend, Tabitha. The pre­vi­ous evening remains a blur in his mem­o­ry, a hazy mix of real­i­ty and strange hal­lu­ci­na­tions that con­fuse his per­cep­tion. One par­tic­u­lar­ly unset­tling moment stands out: a mys­te­ri­ous stranger, whose con­ver­sa­tion felt odd­ly sur­re­al, and the unex­pect­ed appear­ance of a watch, one that Hen­ry does not rec­og­nize, bear­ing the inscrip­tion “Live well.” This pecu­liar gift becomes a haunt­ing sym­bol of the chaot­ic events, leav­ing Hen­ry unsure of what tran­spired and what it means for him mov­ing for­ward, and it serves as a metaphor for the dis­joint­ed, sur­re­al moments in his life that he can no longer clear­ly dis­tin­guish from his dai­ly real­i­ty.

As Hen­ry tries to piece togeth­er the events of the night, he finds him­self feel­ing dis­con­nect­ed from every­thing around him, as if he is mov­ing through life in a fog. His morn­ing rou­tine, usu­al­ly a time of solace, feels off-kil­ter, cloud­ed by the weight of the past and the hang­over that dis­torts his thoughts. His sis­ter, Muriel, unex­pect­ed­ly vis­its him, and despite her calm and com­posed demeanor, her pres­ence adds anoth­er lay­er of con­fu­sion, offer­ing reas­sur­ance that feels strange­ly out of place. Muriel’s vis­it brings back mem­o­ries of Henry’s past, espe­cial­ly his com­pli­cat­ed rela­tion­ship with Tabitha, which now seems to loom large in his mind. As Muriel speaks, Hen­ry reflects on the emo­tion­al stages of grief and the empti­ness that fol­lows the end of a mean­ing­ful rela­tion­ship, but despite this, he remains stuck, unable to move past the painful rem­nants of his love for Tabitha.

The rest of Henry’s day is filled with moments that feel sur­re­al, as if the bound­aries between what is real and what is dis­tort­ed are blur­ring. A seem­ing­ly nor­mal trip to a local cof­fee shop leads to an unex­pect­ed inter­ac­tion with Vanes­sa, a barista, who sud­den­ly starts treat­ing him with more atten­tion and warmth than ever before. This new, per­son­al con­nec­tion feels odd yet com­fort­ing, as if it’s some­thing he’s been miss­ing, but at the same time, it leaves him ques­tion­ing whether he’s mere­ly look­ing for mean­ing in small, unim­por­tant inter­ac­tions. Lat­er, as Hen­ry goes about his day in his book­store, The Last Word, he expe­ri­ences sim­i­lar moments of unex­pect­ed pos­i­tiv­i­ty. His book rec­om­men­da­tions are well-received, and cus­tomers seem more engaged than ever, offer­ing him com­pli­ments and mak­ing friend­ly con­ver­sa­tion that feels unusu­al­ly gen­uine. These inter­ac­tions leave Hen­ry feel­ing as though he’s final­ly being seen and acknowl­edged, but they also spark a deep unease, as he begins to won­der if the world around him is chang­ing in sub­tle, unex­plain­able ways.

As Hen­ry con­tin­ues to nav­i­gate his day, even his clos­est friends, Rob­bie and Bea, start act­ing in ways that seem to car­ry a new lev­el of inten­si­ty. Robbie’s vis­it to the book­store, along with his unex­pect­ed embrace, feels out of char­ac­ter, as if he’s reach­ing out in a way that he nev­er has before. Bea, too, shares more with Hen­ry than usu­al, vent­ing her frus­tra­tions about her aca­d­e­m­ic strug­gles in a con­ver­sa­tion that feels unusu­al­ly inti­mate. Despite the sin­cer­i­ty of their actions, some­thing about their behav­ior seems dif­fer­ent, as if they are engag­ing with Hen­ry on a deep­er lev­el than before, which makes him feel both com­fort­ed and dis­ori­ent­ed. This chap­ter explores the com­plex­i­ty of rela­tion­ships and the shift­ing dynam­ics of friend­ship, love, and per­son­al reflec­tion. Through Henry’s inter­ac­tions, we see his inter­nal strug­gle with the deep-seat­ed lone­li­ness and con­fu­sion that stems from the break in his con­nec­tion with Tabitha, and his grow­ing unease as he begins to sense that the world around him is not quite as it seems. It is in these qui­et moments of intro­spec­tion, along with the strange syn­chronic­i­ties of the day, that Hen­ry is con­front­ed with the ten­sion between what he believes to be real and what he now real­izes might be some­thing far more elu­sive. His jour­ney is one of search­ing for mean­ing, grap­pling with iden­ti­ty, and explor­ing the tran­sient nature of life in a world where the line between real­i­ty and illu­sion is often unclear.