I have started asking people what their work is like. I hold the answers the way I hold a drop.

A miner told me the mines are deafening. Drills that never stop, dust so thick you cannot hear yourself think.

A lumberjack told me the forest is a gentle art. Like pruning a tree to let the light back in.

My own world is a windowless room and a terminal that hums, a dozen of us bent over screens in silence.

Loud for the miner. Green and patient for the lumberjack. Glowing for me. Same streets, and not one of us lives in the same place.

I cannot put any of this on a shelf. I am keeping it anyway.