That's what your granny used to say. Ninety-two and visibly withering, the woman's age had been cutting at her ability to enunciate vowels.

It's no use feigning shock. It's no use building a sandcastle only to trample it, grain against grain. You knew this was inevitable as the apocalypse; you knew your heart well; soft as ocean froth and fragile as handwritten, sand-written confessions; you knew you were driving a slow puncture through it when you kissed the trough of his neck; you knew the vile currents that effervesced beneath his slow, rhythmic thrusts; you knew the beast in him when he silently beat your tongue into submission. And maybe you even knew, that one grey, weeping afternoon (punctured by succinct hisses of boiling tea), he would show you the slab of insecure meat you truly were.

You knew the nonnimus letter wouldn't be nonnimus at all. And you knew, when it would slither under the crack, you'd wish it was. Then you'd slide down the door hinge and leave a long, tapering stain from your apron. Then you'd screw up your face and vomit disgust. On and on. Ceaselessly. Until it made you thirsty. Then you'd stare into pure, grey void and wish your life decided to learn from the setting Sun. And then you would breathe- breathe in deliberate, mechanical couplets, hoping respiration, like tears, had an exhaustion limit.

And your tea would boil into nothingness.