Walking into the room, the elevation changed and I found the air thin. I breathed deeper by instinct, and my lungs contracted on finding that they did not draw in more oxygen as a result. My chest felt heavy.

―You’ll get used to it, she said.

It took me a while. For the first month I walked as close to the ground as possible in an attempt to take in more oxygen.

Boy wearing all black looks cold. He is wearing a long black coat. Under, black shirt, black pants, black underwear. Skinny stick man figure in all black, limbs like pencil markings. Boy in all black thinks he is invisible (only in the night. The sunlight makes him stand out,) so boy looks grim-faced in the morning.

“My round belly is a sign of the times,” he says, while the rest of us eat dirt.

(Woman wearing all black in standing at the street corner. She is going to work.)