after sharing her son’s birth story, the woman comments on the oddness of hearing it aloud. she closes by saying all words are her last. she is at least as old as the brother I’m told I have. when told, I believe the one speaking is speaking to the room I’m in that’s been entered by the likes of me as into a place where a manuscript has just been finished. I continue my brother as a distraction in the form of a man trying to erase a cigarette burn from the arm of a typist. man makes the sound I have on my person that both my parents made. instead of taking her medication, the woman imagines herself homeless in a part of town she’s passed while having ***.