viscous raze jana has more than a hundred relatives. some she's never met. one of them is a woman who lives in antarctica, who tells her she's welcome to come stay with her anytime she likes. she and her husband go home instead, back to the landlocked state in central europe where they were born, to spend two weeks with her grandmother. the woman is eighty-five. she gets up at seven and works on her farm until her head hits the pillow at eleven. she prays every day to a god who doesn't know her name. she cooks for her guests. simple food freighted with unspoken love. she asks jana's husband to drive her to the church she minds each morning. where she lives, there are no roads. there's only gravel. "i'll never get there on time at this rate," she says. "i always go at least eighty or ninety when i'm driving." he gives the car more gas and loses control. they don't crash. they just weave. there's nothing to hit out here. back at the house, she asks him to fetch water from the well for the horses. it smells strange to him. it doesn't look right. thick with some sort of oil. "the horses drink it," the old woman says. "i drink it. and i'm still alive." he doesn't drink the water. but he can't shake the feeling that he'll die before she does. maybe she'll still be here when the rest of the world has wasted away, preserved by the murky wisdom of chosen solitude. 240418 what's it to you? who go blather from