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want to have a baby,” he repeats. The words are no longer dressed as a question.
    Ingrid locks her eyes on Rollo, an inescapable gaze he feels trapped within. His neck seizes and returns the gaze against his will.
    “Is this something you’re comfortable with?”
    Rollo understands this question as one divorced from an answer. Ingrid’s gaze is telling him the time has come to have a baby. His decision is not one of whether he will allow it; rather it revolves around his willingness to participate in it. The baby is a foregone conclusion. He attempts to understand the mechanics of making a baby. A baby is the result of two physicalities coming together as one. Surely Ingrid has no intention of instituting such an impossible process.
    The potential repercussion such an addition to the fort may have entails a need for Rollo to align himself closely with whatever events are set to unfold.
    “How shall we proceed with this?” he asks.
    Ingrid finally unlocks her gaze, content her desires will be fulfilled. Moving about the solvency of affirmed headspace, she stands and feels the straightening of posture. The absolution of lungs enjoying unhindered breath. The conceit of something resembling purpose.
    “I have spent some time considering this.” she says. “The baby should be the result of us both. Made from the fort. An embodiment of who we are.”
    In contrast to Ingrid’s affirmation of self, Rollo shrinks into portents of disquiet. A spike of concern unsettles his composure. Ingrid wishes to steal from the fort and make a baby forged of theft.
    “I will knit the baby,” she continues. “You will gather material of the highest quality. Material used in the fort’s construction and maintenance and I will knit them into a baby. Our baby.”
    Sought words cannot be found. Rollo wonders if the words he seeks exist at all and if so, do they possess the meaning he wishes them to possess? He is left to agree without substance and wonders what baby might result from Ingrid’s handiwork. He feels it should be his job to knit the baby. Anything built within the fort and of the fort should occur via his hand. He cannot recall ever having knitted anything, though his hands feel capable of performing the act. Rollo’s confidence lives in his hands.
    Ingrid’s face wears the curve of a smile, and appears to glow with vitality’s elusive ember. Rollo suspects she has stolen any remnants of color that may have belonged to him. He suspects perhaps this development is an attempt to wrest control of the fort. To wrest control of him. He imagines something once dormant in Ingrid meeting the perfect mixture of conditions in which to erupt, shifting every dynamic their foundation rests upon. The enormity of Rollo’s weakness occupies him. He feels the hunger wrought by endless unfinished meals. He moves toward the discarded plates of the dinner past. His is piled with the unconsumed. Strength on a plate when it should be in him. Contrary to his plate, Ingrid’s is empty, the contents have found a home within her, spreading strength throughout her body. He pulls his remaining sustenance close and fills his desperate mouth, feeling the food break into a fungal slush primed for entry. The unfamiliar intake travels downward, slowed by the narrowed passage of an emaciated esophagus. The intolerable quantity is cast out, landing back on the plate.
    “Are you okay?”
    There is no response forthcoming. Nothing to assuage Ingrid’s curiosity. No means by which to achieve dignity. Rollo holds the plate close and tips the dreck back into his mouth, determined to keep it down this time. The bulk sits within puffed cheeks, pushing against his pursed lips. A small amount travels downward, slowly transferring the contents from mouth to stomach.
    “I do not understand why you want to force it down. Why are you eating like that?”
    Heavy breaths escape his stretched throat, emerging amidst wheezes and coughs. Rollo feels as though he has