Hum

by Helen Phillips

Poison is in everything, and no thing is without poison. The dosage makes it either a poison or a remedy. —PARACELSUS

To think that humans, once prey in the wild, had arrived at this. These glazes and sprinkles.

they had agreed to give the children small, quick names, names that could disguise themselves within other words. Solution, sudsy. Synthesis, lullaby.

Incredulous, she took hold of his hand. Despite the distance that sometimes grew untended between them: she was known by him.

“We are all villains,” the hum said. “The system only gives us villainous options.”