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Summary
Ivan does not hesitate. Hesitation would be noticed. It would be recorded, remembered, held. Instead, he swallows without chewing. Whatever is biting into his stomach twists there, forcing it into a knotty mess, pushing the swallowed pieces back up his throat. He quashes it anyway, pressing everything down, tamps the reaction flat, and keeps still until the watching eye finds nothing to seize.
( Or, time lingers only in the living: one, once younger, now alone in its quiet passage, while the other rests frozen, unchanging. The insects are absent, and yet the silence speaks. Death itself becomes a record. )