she wanted to be everything, but echoes were never rooted in permanence, and so what was was undefined, a string-theorist's nightmare. He told her this. She let fragility envelope the quietude of her hands, folded and congealed in her lap; wrapped herself around continuity. I was, I was, I was; a solemn heartbeat, that of the thousand gunshots that stole wind-struck birds from the sky.
