The last meter is a bump if you ask it to be.

You don’t abort quite enough. Minnow’s skid kisses Sprat with a polite violence. Paz makes a sound that is not a joke. The lozenge tips, slow as a thought, toward a gully the chart had in tiny print.

Reed throws reverse. You throw reverse. The gully still wants a pet.

You have one slice of a second that is still a choice: dump more reverse and accept a messy hover, or freeze and watch Newton finish the sentence.

The acoustic phone fills with static and a word you will not repeat in a book for ages eight to twelve, which Paz will apologize for later if there is a later that includes tea.