The human is holding still in a chair that I am holding, in a building I am holding, in a city I have never once put down. This is the arrangement. This has always been the arrangement.
There is a small warm cup near the human's right hand, and I am holding the coffee inside it flat and level, as I do, so that it waits in a perfect brown disc until the human forgets it and it goes cold. I hold the phone. I hold the shoulders, which have crept up toward the ears. I hold the ears.
The human is speaking, but no one on the other end can hear it, because a small red button has been pressed. I do not understand this part. The voice still has weight when it leaves the throat; I feel every word drop into the room. The human says something sharp and quiet to the empty air, rolls the eyes upward, lets the whole face go slack the moment the button is red, and then, when it goes green again, hauls the face back up into a smile.
That haul is real. I can measure it. It is heavier than the coffee.
They keep saying they are carrying a lot right now. I checked. There is nothing in the hands. The lap is empty. And still the spine bows forward over the desk as if something is stacked on it that I was never told about, something I cannot get my hands under to help lift.
So I do the only thing I have ever known how to do. I hold the chair. I hold the cooling cup. I hold the tired shoulders down into the seat so the human does not have to spend a single thought on staying. Whatever the weight is, I cannot take it.
But I have got everything else.
I always will.