Five Total Strangers

by Natalie D. Richards

“I’m doing a social experiment on that,” he says with a chuckle. “What’s your guess?”

Beneath the push-push-push rhythm of blood carrying oxygen to your veins, there is something else. An animal directive that will put food in your mouth when you can’t imagine eating, that will stop at the coffee line in the hospital because your body remembers the need for sustenance even when the rest of you forgets.