Survivor

According to Fertility Hollis, there is no chaos.

There are only patterns, patterns on top of patterns, patterns that affect other patterns. Patterns hidden by patterns. Patterns within patterns.

The night before I left home, my big brother told me everything he knew about the outside world.

In the outside world, he said, women had the power to change the color of their hair. And their eyes. And their lips.

To calm this girl down, to get her to listen, I tell her the story about my fish. This is fish number six-hundred and forty-one in a lifetime of goldfish.