rau Bertram starts crying. You notice how porous all fate is and you understand the leap into hoping. Hoping for the deus ex machina, hoping for a superhero or anyone, really—all that’s perfectly understandable here in the stairwell with your quietly weeping neighbor Frau Bertram, but five minutes later and three floors higher it’s already forgotten. The whole welfare thing, you think, perhaps a person could manage it somehow. It must be possible. A person could regard it as a profession they’re performing, something that’s not pleasant but at least doesn’t require forty hours’ attendance a week. So you’re considering becoming a welfare recipient and replacing the global corporation with the welfare office. You call out in my direction: I’m going to champion the activity of receiving welfare as a recognized profession. You act the militant but it’s nothing but circular motions in your underchallenged head, which has had nothing to do while your body was recovering. As a precaution, you lie down uncovered beneath the open window and shiver with cold, hoping to extend the length of your illness and get more time to think. But your body disappoints you, drives you beneath the covers after only ten minutes, preferring to warm up. You know the way to the welfare office from people’s stories, you know you can get there without changing trams.