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before John Bull got them thinking they might be human. I don’t see this being any different from the corporations controlling Third World labour. All those educated ceos exploiting the peasants. We’re exploiting the peasants because we buy all that crap they make for a dollar a year.
    Power tells us to say a prayer or at least bow our heads in memory of the twelve homicide victims in our area already this year. This guy kills me.
    Kadylak’s diarrhea from the chemo is worse. She’s got sores on her mouth, anus and vagina. Peeing is torture so she’s refusing liquids, which is a concern. She can’t concentrate on anything. I try reading to her but she’s not listening. I get her a freezie, pick up the remote and surf, but there’s nothing she wants to watch. I turn it off and listen to the whirr of the hospital for what feels like a couple of hours.
    â€˜God is bigger than a tree,’ she says.
    I don’t argue.
    â€˜God is a spirit,’ she says. ‘Bigger than the universe. They teach us that in church.’
    Her sheet and blanket are in a tangle at the foot of her bed. ‘Are you too hot?’ I ask. ‘Or do you want me to straighten these out?’
    â€˜Is it time for me to go to heaven?’
    â€˜Definitely not,’ I say. ‘It’s just the chemo. It’s always like this.’
    â€˜It wasn’t this bad before.’
    I don’t tell her it was but didn’t seem as bad because it was her first and second time. By round three you’re familiar with the suffering, you wait for it, fear it. I tell her about the kids in the out-patient clinic who come in for maintenance, who’ve gone through what she’s going through and have no cancer. Kids with new hair who are back at school kicking balls around.
    â€˜Do you want to go to the playroom?’ I ask, trying to change topics. She doesn’t answer, just stares up at the bird mobile her dad hung up for her. She loves birds.
    â€˜Why’s my mum always crying?’ she asks.
    â€˜She’s sad because of all the chemo and the pokes you’re getting. She knows you’re hurting.’
    I saw her mother on the way in. She was scurrying to her night cleaning job. She looks about ninety.
    â€˜There’s a blue jay’s nest in our backyard,’ I say. ‘You can see the chicks poking their heads up and squawking any time one of their parents is around with food. It’s like they’re squealing, “Me, me, me!” You’d think they’d be quieter so no predators could hear them.’
    â€˜What’s predators?’
    â€˜Animals who eat them.’
    â€˜The babies don’t know that they can be eaten,’ Kadylak says. ‘That’s why they don’t keep quiet. They don’t know that they can die.’
    I stroke her forehead until she goes to sleep. I know she’ll wake up in agony in a couple of hours and no one will be here. She’ll rock and rock, calling for her parents. I tuck Mischa the bear into her arms.
    Now that she doesn’t have a day job, and when she isn’t ambushing felines, Drew waters the plants every two seconds, rotting the roots. She’s slouched at the kitchen table surrounded by dead vegetation. ‘Maybe they need plant food,’ she says. She’s still in Damian’s PJS . Her only contact with the outside world is the newspaper. She reads every single page, which is enough to stop anybody going out.
    â€˜Maybe you shouldn’t read that all the time,’ I say. ‘It’s all under corporate control anyway.’
    â€˜One of those fucking cats killed a bird,’ she says. She’s eating peanut butter again. ‘It was flapping its wings but was too injured to fly.’ She stares at the sandwich. ‘I didn’t know what to do. So I did nothing.’
    â€˜Chasing the cat off would have lengthened its suffering,’ I say.
    â€˜I want to