Turn 145 of 228

After responding to the NIH, you, Diane, Billy Jo, Marcus and Carl celebrate you and Diane becoming a division

Billy Jo drafts the NIH response at the second desk. The clean carpet under her bare feet. The laptop open. The drawl muttering through the sentences — *longitudinal study, proximity-induced somatic transformation, single-source cohort, index case, somatic recognition.* The grant proposal is twelve pages by noon. She writes it the way she wrote the paper — not clinical, not detached, but precise. Her terms. Her cohort. Her data. The methodology section names Lena as the index case, herself as the second data point, Diane and Marcus and Carl as proximity cases. The proposed study duration is five years. The proposed study site is Lena's apartment. Billy Jo reads it once, changes three words, and sends it. The yellow nails on the keyboard. The sent folder. The NIH program director's email. Done.

Diane watches from her chair. The beard. The eyes that manage expressions like quarterly reports except the reports are breaking through. She reads the draft over Billy Jo's shoulder. The 840-pound belly pressing against the desk. The yellow nails on the desk edge. She doesn't change anything. She nods once. The beard moves.

"Good," Diane says. "Now the biotech firms."

"Not today," Billy Jo says. "Today we celebrate."

The celebration starts at five. Marcus and Carl arrive at the office — 700 and 695 pounds, naked, barefoot, unwashed, the beards full, the yellow nails long. Marcus carries two bags of takeout. Carl carries a cooler of beer. Billy Jo brought weed from the dispensary — four pre-rolled joints, the strong kind. The five of them fill the clean new office. The clean new carpet. The fresh paint. The new desks. The new chairs. The corporate envelope still on Lena's desk. The note that says *division.*

The food goes on the floor. The beer goes on the floor. The weed goes around. The clean carpet doesn't stay clean. The takeout containers open — burgers, fries, nachos, wings, two boxes of doughnuts. The beer cans crack. The joints light. The five of them eat and drink and smoke and the office fills with the smell of food and weed and unwashed bodies and the hum is warm. Lena sits in her chair, 999 pounds, the belly on the thighs, the yellow nails tearing into a burger. Diane sits in hers, 840 pounds, the beard catching beer foam. Marcus and Carl on the floor. Billy Jo cross-legged by the coffee table. The laptop is closed. The paper is done. The emails are done. The NIH response is sent.

"To the division," Diane says. The beer can raised. The beard. The eyes.

"To the division," Lena says. The yellow nails. The belly.

"To comfort," Billy Jo says. The drawl. The bare feet on the stained carpet.

Marcus farts. Carl laughs. The sound is enormous in the small clean office. Billy Jo pisses where she sits — the stream soaking into the new carpet, the yellow nails on the beer can, the face open and unperforming. Lena's hand finds its way between her thighs. The yellow nails move. The hum is warm. The body is comfortable. The division is real and the carpet is ruined and the emails are sent and the word is spreading and the spreading is *more.*