She drew concentric circles around the he(e)(a)l of an atom, out of what she knew was fleeting despair. It was distraction. She chanted to herself, over and over again, let this moment pass, let this moment pass, let this moment pass. She understood its temporality, but the presence of its immediate duration, how to be both within and without of its presence, she did not. She followed its spirals around teeth, around sandcastles, thinking that behind them, under them, she would find softness, buried inside like an egg, waiting for her, incubating in its harsh shell. She wanted to find it, more than anything, to save it from its own defensiveness, which caused the egg more pain than the attacks. She thought, I cannot reach backwards, inside, with these extremities called arms, and so I search for eggs, under rocks and hanging from trees, to give me my life again. Perhaps my duality is mirrored in an egg, she thought, perhaps I want only recognition. She didn't know, but followed it anyway.

She ran and when she opened her mouth to gulp the air, she swallowed the entire universe inside her. It is my breath and I am its, we breathe each other, move in and out, like the yellow ball, swaying from orange to red. She knew nothing was fixed, and this scared her, the way the world was slippery, and did not understand why she craved for something contradictory to that.