2

Sick today. Swapping it with tomorrow, calling out of work.

She lied on the couch with her eyes shut. Her head was against one armrest and her feet atop the other. Trying to feel asleep. The tv's been on. Her daughter's in the loveseat two feet from her head.

Breathing is a part of what makes blood work. But people hold their breath for a lot of reasons. Superstition, driving by a cemetery. Tantrums. Orgasmic upgrade. Playing along with scenes in movies when a character is submerged.

She didn't know she was holding it. None of them know, it's a family trait.
Inhale. Hold, hold, hold, then: audible nasal exhalation that sounds like fingers snapping, muted in a sinusoidal cave. Breathing is largely a subconscious action taken by a brain to keep its system alive. This system, then kept functioning, can come to resent its own trappings.

Continually holding one's breath subconsciously; what if an anxious mind could will its own body's blood to not clot? This thought opens her eyes.

"Mom, are you watching this?"
The TV has been on.

The answer is a long, pointed exhalation. Words are complicit with a waking life. Neither hears the other not breathing.

Both of their thoughts start in a bedroom at the end of the hallway through the wall. In it lies a child of eighteen years. In him is a respiration dictated by the wildness of information that exists in media. He insisted he be alone while he performed certain rituals. I obliged and stood in the hallway.