I snapped this picture of my workspace after very little staging. At times, despite my best efforts, the table becomes a depository for snail mail. I removed a few bills; otherwise, itโs accurate. The table is a zinc-top number that my wife and I found in the relatively sinister basement of the first home we ever bought. I donโt know that it was ours to take when we moved from Prides Crossing, MA, to Santa Monica, CA, in 2013, but we did. I understand that it was legally ours to remove, but I do sometimes wonder what effect taking the table might have had on the ghosts that inhabited the 1875 home, originally built to house railroad workers. If itโs cursed, Iโve yet to find outโunless you count being tethered to it for long bouts of dissatisfaction with myself.
The table now sits in Wimberley, TX, tucked into the corner of our bedroom, rather than in the beautiful office in our home (which is a long story). I like all the furniture in our house, though most of it is too modern for its own good, but I can count the pieces that I know weโll take with us in perpetuity until they are no longer fit for travelling on just three fingers. At the top of that very short list is this possibly haunted, lightly cursed zinc table, of course.
Currently, on top of this table, which is warped and rough and far from flat, which can sometimes make for a wobbly writing experience, are a few of the smaller things that matter a lot to me at the moment. At the risk of turning you off to the rest of this article immediately, I regret that I must inform you: this aged zinc surface collects skin cells in a way a newer desk would not. What running a damp rag over it from time to time produces on the fabric is not for the meek. If you are still with me, letโs talk about the other, more pleasant things pictured here.
Iโm sad to see two nicotine lozenge bottles there, but only because I try my best to keep that for-now necessary habit a secret from my son, who has no doubt figured it out at this point anyway. The nicotine remains necessary and a better alternative to puffing on the cigarettes Iโve chosen to eschew for the past several years. Like everything else pictured hereโon the desk and the desk itselfโthe nicotine makes me happy, inspires me, keeps me on task. Even the haphazard pile of doodads tucked behind the salt lamp in the upper right-hand corner makes me happy in some bizarre way. Like me, they are tiny forgotten items that might serve a worthy purpose again someday (not a great analogy, but, sorry, I couldnโt resist).
The collection of books on the desk isnโt permanent but part of an ever-changing rotation. Iโm either reading it for fun, reading it for reference, reading it for vibes, or have it sitting nearby as inspiration for the manuscript Iโm working on. Some of the books live there more regularly than others, providing inspiration just to sit down and work at all. The most recent addition to the reasons a book is on the desk is because Iโve been asked to blurb itโvery lucky, very fun.
Other than books, I donโt collect a lot of any specific thing. I used to. But a decade ago, my mother asked me to come get all the things I had hoarded from her attic and closets, and I realized I hadnโt missed most of it. The same thing happened to a bunch of items that traveled with us from NYC to BOS to LA to AUS to Wimberley, TX, in a neon-orange CB2 metal trunk. I opened it one day, but couldnโt be bothered with it, and ultimately donated the whole trunk, two trunks, I think, to a local thrift store. Maybe you now own something I once did. Maybe like the zinc table, it wasnโt actually ever supposed to be yours. Perhaps we are connected by the fact that we each have things that the other used to have. I realize this is a long shot, but are you the original owner of my zinc top desk? Holler if so. Iโd love to learn more about it. But it stays. ย ย ย ย ย A few last things: 1) My current favorite thing on this deskโafter the nicotine and coffee that is usually in that oversized mugโis the 9 to 5 movie poster that author Danger Slater did for me as part of a promotional effort for pre-ordering his book Starlet. 2) I write at a lot of other places in the house, but I can honestly say that most of the first draft of my debut novel, What The Dead Can Do (out August 26th, 2025), was written at this desk. 3) IMPORTANTLY: And this is hopefully really evident by now, but no, the desk is not for sale and you canโt have it. At least not until one day you find it in the basement of a home that I will most likely be haunting.
Peter Rosch is the author of What The Dead Can Do (out 08.26.25 from Crooked Lane Books), Future Skinny, But I Love You, and My Dead Friend Sarah, and other dark fictions, many born from the addictions he chased while living in New York City. Heโs sober now but remains an addictโs addict: he can turn anything fun into a serious problem.
