I remind myself to breathe and find that I can’t. The air is too thick: too heavy and too still, as if it is congealing. Air like honey, like water falling on my face: I have been noticed. My chest clenches. The silence is a lie, a down quilt pulled over the world, and beneath it there are whispers, like voices from another room. Scipio was a flopping fish swallowed whole by a heron. I can feel eyes on me, noticing me, and with that notice comes a buzz like an angry hive or a storm. It fills my ears, my nose, my mouth and down into my lungs. There is a belt of leather around my neck, my arms are fast against my side. I feel a thick wooden branch in my throat, and a weight that would drive me to my knees, except that—