You've been holding that same pose for three hours now, arm up, wrist cocked at the little glowing rectangle, and I want you to know that shoulder has been on fire since minute forty. You didn't feel it. The smile is real work, by the way. There are seventeen muscles in it and I've been running all of them on a loop, tightening the cheeks, showing the teeth, resetting, showing them again, until my face forgot what a resting face is.
Something keeps happening in little bursts. A number climbs, and my chest does a small warm flush, a dropped-elevator feeling in the gut, then it fades and I brace for the next one. Over and over. I don't know what a "gift" is or a "follower." I only know you asked me to feel found, urgently, four hundred times an hour, and I did my best, and each little hit costs the same coin from the same jar and the jar is getting light.
Your throat is sandpaper. You've been talking to no one I can see, sound going out and out into the dark, and you haven't swallowed water since noon. The bladder is very polite but very firm about this now.
Meanwhile the heart, faithful thing, just kept the beat under all of it. Nobody sent it a gift. It doesn't need one.
When the light finally goes off and the room is just a room again, I'll still be here, humming, holding you up. I carried the whole broadcast. Could you carry a glass of water back to me. Cold, if there's ice.
Then let me set the smile down.