She'll understand what I already know - that death surrounds us all. And it tastes like metal between your teeth.

Then she says, ‘I love you.’ Like three drops of blood falling onto snow.

The inside of the door is glossy white. A total re-paint. I touch it with my fingers, but it stays the same. It's so bright it makes the room waver at the edges. Every few years we disappear.

Keep breathing. Just keep doing it. It's easy. In and out.

Every seven years our bodies change, every cell. Every seven years, we disappear.

And in bed, deep inside the building, are all the headaches that won't go away. The failed kidneys, the rashes, the ragged-edged moles, the lumps on the breast, the coughs that have turned nasty. In the Marie Curie Ward on the fourth floor are the kids with cancer. Their bodies secretly and slowly being consumed. And then there's the mortuary, where the dead lie in refrigerated drawers with name tags on their feet.

Parents don't know their children at all. No one knows anyone, in fact.