4:34 AM

She glances at the headphones strewn carelessly across the table, moving with her fingers as she types, singing to itself. It was just a K-pop song that was on. Back back back back to you.

Her plastic square container filled with a pool of soymilk and drowning little lifesavers makes her smile as she watches them desperately and futilely try to clamber onto the metal pole to safety.

Night.

This is the life, she thought. I just learned what diapedesis is. How do you even pronounce that? Die-uh-PEE-deh .. deh-cease. Die-uh-PEED-uh-sis. She sounds them out to the chorus of her father quitely snoring, quickly reminded of those floundering little Cheerios. The corner of her mouth lifts in a smile as she thinks of Sue Sylvester and her shenanigans.

Lady Gaga prowls through headset as she swallows a mouthful of soggy cereal. Grimace. How much longer is this going to last? Beads of soymilk cling to the polyurethane surface. Bad bladders. Running through is diabetes. So are my aquaporin 2's working properly or not? she pondered, picturing diagrams from months ago. Such useful, useful diagrams. Thank goodness I managed to shove all that into my head or I'd be doubly screwed right now.

"Once inside the tissues, monocytes mature to become macrophages." That's cool. I guess everyone has to grow up, even the immune system's cells. All these –cytes are lined up at the factory, being processed down the assembly line, they descend from one big Kahuna cell that magically lets the little minions grow up to be whatever they want. What a good parent. She wipes the sticky milk from her mouth in one quick motion with her whole left hand. The other one is busy thinking. They're really like action figures. About the same story, just slightly different with cooler weapons as you walk down the toy aisle.

Her mom is sick. She's been sick for years and years. She doesn't have the stamina to keep being concerned about it like it's fresh news. Everyone's adapted by now. It's a day-to-day deal. She told her father earlier in the day that immunology's kind of boring. He went off like he always does about how cool and specific the antigens and antibodies can get. She was texting someone when he said that. Auditory recall. Less than 4 seconds. Echoic memory. She scrawled it down on the slides. That was a year ago. Crazy.

She's been drinking water out of plastic bottles. Her father says the water here is bad. Not clean. Full of weird stuff that isn't healthy. She doesn't see the point. She twists open another translucent cap. When she takes her hands out of her lap, it's like she's preparing the opening note to a concerto. Those were the times. She still thinks like a pianist. Some things are too deeply ingrained into the brain. She takes an audible gulp of Arrowhead.

"Clothes make the man." She read that somewhere. It was by Mark Twain, I think. What a funny man with such clever thoughts. She languishes in a loose top. If anyone looks through the side the large sleeves will expose her chest. It's the night. No one cares. Clothes are wonderful some moments, in others abominable. She despises those pretentious shirt tags that itch in the back. If you already have one on the left side, why would you put another itchier one in the back? She cuts them all off, sometimes ripping them too hurriedly with both hands and leaving a gaping hole in the back. She puts the shirt over her head and pulls. Comfort and style. That's why she'll probably never buy designer clothes. It's the itchy little label in the back that makes all the difference between something that gets donated to Goodwill and something treasured and never worn because it cost 2 months of saving.

Gel pens. She doesn't like the pink one. She really does need a red pen sometimes but that sparkly weird thing has to suffice. They all belong to her brother. When she used to buy gel pens in elementary school and junior high, she was stingy, didn't want to spend the $3 for something that would dry out in a month. She tried not to use them too. Such beautiful swirls in the little plastic tube. The aorta of the gel pen. The green one is her favourite. It has a lot of pigmentation. That's how gel pens are supposed to be. I wonder where the blue one went. It's all right. She just uses the ballpoint pen with blue ink. Much darker and less sparkly than the phantom blue gelly.

She leans back in the great armchair. She never uses the arms really, but gets really nervous when there aren't arms in a chair. Or in a car. She always puts the arms down in a car. It gives her security. Unlike the scratches on the piano. Unlike the rubber band-bound left arm of the leather chair. All from moving. Doesn't moving about keep people alive? Not for her. It kills every step she takes.

Away from home.