Had for a year now liked to drink milk. He’d seen a report on it, how baby cows are separated from their mothers after two days. Both parties scream. Even cry. Most of the baby cows are slaughtered for meat. Which the mother cows once again greet with tears and screams. Since then Carl drank milk with a grin on his face. He often sat up nights in his kitchen with a glass of milk in front of him, sensing it wouldn’t be his kitchen for much longer. Even in the southernmost part of the city, where Carl lived, the soy milk–flat white cafés had arrived, always a sign of transformation. Transformation, right. The streets would be repaved and Zara shops would replace Sudanese greengrocers. And then: See you later! Carl sat in his kitchen and looked into the yard, where he could see a light. In the apartment across the way lived young, urbane people of indeterminate gender with dyed blue hair. Assholes. And Carl sat in his kitchen because he didn’t want to sleep, he didn’t have enough teeth left, and it was cold, creeping up from his feet, and it was nauseating or at least it smelled that way, and there was nothing but mayonnaise in the fridge, and nothing grew from the walls, nothing grew into something he could disappear into, where he could stand in a glade in the forest and breathe deeply, and then everything began again from the beginning, counting down, and at night Carl counted, there were ten more years, then he’d be retirement age, and then another ten and he’d be dead. His breasts sagged and so did his balls, and he wasn’t going to find a wife now. They’d gather him up somewhere along the imaginary walls of the city. What was that goddamn mongoloid poof doing over there in the light? A light that made him restless. A person that made him restless. That woman in homo rags.

Or the other way around. The fact that she was unable to keep things straight. That the restlessness and disorder in her sexual statements had to be dragged out into the world. “Listen up. That thing sits at the kitchen table with blood in the face. I’ll show you what blood is.” Says Carl. And heads out. He’ll give the communications consultant a piece of his mind.

It

Had been worth it.

For the

CHILDREN