There’s a dead ant in her cream cheese bagel, but she can’t find the energy to care.  It’s ant season after all, sometimes these things can’t be helped. 

Extra protein, right? Other cultures eat ants all the time.

The air is cold and her heart thrums in her chest with the weight of her To Dos, and of her mother, who is sick (sick again, as always, at this time of year) and her sister (drunk all year round). Glancing at her ticking watch, she closes her coat against the cold, wrapping up her organs in cheap pleather but the chill still gets in. Avoiding the cracks as she walks briskly over the sunny spring pavement, she tries to think kind thoughts towards the bagel vendor and her mother and sister who she doesn’t speak to, because after all, it’s ant season.

These things can’t be helped.