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Catmint wakes up to the taste of milk and baking soda He pushes his tongue against his teeth Swallows thick, creamy catarrh It is five oh two He turns to the right, slips from bed and begins   First, he lays out Beetle’s pills on a paper napkin Two brown circles, one large pink oval, and a white capsule filled with soluble red powder He spaces each of them out with his smallest fingernail Then, he tiptoes about the bedroom whilst Beetle sleeps, brushing out his hair and clipping it back, slipping into his two-strap sandals, painting his eyelids with a waxy, yellow pigment He stands on the dresser and cleans inside the Recirculator with his fingers, and then he lifts his filthy hands above his head and closes the bedroom door with his hip   Outside, he neatens the shoes on the shoe rack, fills the kettle to the third notch, and picks the bloated bits of rice from the sink The grout between the tiles is cleaned The living room rug made perpendicular to the living room wall The showerhead left in a bucket of white vinegar   He leaves the flat at around seven The street is crowned with a horizon of laundry Wires going from window to window draped with paisley sheets and stained underwear, all hanging stagnant in the breezeless air Catmint stops at the newsagents on the corner for a cut of synth-citric The woman at the counter holds it out in her hands like a sticky yellow pebble before wrapping it in brown paper Outside of the shop the radios are beginning to crackle to life There are speakers jutting out of the walls, attached to lamp posts, on people’s balconies and patios Several stations garbling over each other White noise to keep the peace at bay   Catmint looks up at the pale seven o’clock sky, and for a moment, is convinced he might see a bird He doesn’t       There is a library on Via 760 that sells sencha tea It’s oily and tastes like wet white fish – a poor echo of the original Beetle hates it, and this