mother says I don't see you drinking enough water you never drink look at your lips they're so red you're always putting on lip balm because they're cracked when your body is dehydrated it shuts down your organs all shut down especially your kidneys I think isn't shutting down a binary absolute your kidneys can't be especially shut down but keep silent because there's no stopping for semantics when she's on a roll look at your yeye he's wasting away in his cot because he never took care of his kidneys you better drink more water I don't want to see your lips all broken it is your body telling you that you are sick and then you can just drop dead without knowing it and then it struck me that I have never seen her drink water in my life in all the twenty three years I've known mother she sips coffee and downs wine and huang jiu and scotch and champagne and sake and soups and sherry and vodka and cognac and port and beer and choya and I've never seen her drink a cup of water not even a drop I wonder if she gets her daily intake in the shower just to mess with us children so we'd never see her need water and think her omnipotent and shudder at our own infant mortality and then she rocks back and forth bashing the walls like the Fabergé egg she is she looks long and hard at me glowering like dying embers her pupils vanish into her head and she snaps her head back smashes a cup to her lips and swallows.