I was making breakfast in the morning. A long-haired man put his hand harshly on my shoulder. I turned around and grabbed his wrist. I said to him, “My father built this house.”

He said to me, “My Native American ancestors nourished the tree and stone this house is built with.”

I was taken aback, not expecting this. I said, “Well, I guess we’re even then.”

You have to pick a part. Imagine a play. Now imagine a character without lines or stage cues. What would she do? She wouldn’t know what to say or where to stand. And the audience would get upset. They would say, who is this fool on stage? Gone with them! And on with the play! If everyone else is going to play their role, and we’ve agreed to be organized, we must play our roles too.

Imagine all the different lives in just one city. I stand on my balcony at nine o’clock at night and look towards downtown. The dressed-up and cute, young couple having a date night at a nice French restaurant. The crowd at a concert jumping up and down for the headlining act. Another couple, they decided to stay in their apartment and make love. A homeless man inside his tent in a back alley digging for the last crumbs in an empty chip bag. A lonely elderly woman watching television and dreading meeting her friends for tea in the morning. A family finishing up dinner and cleaning the dishes. In the next hour, some people will die, and others will be born. All these different lives, at the same time, all in one city.

The little ant couldn’t remember how he had gotten lost. He was in the middle of an expanse with no sense of direction. The ground under his feet was hard. He had nothing with him other than the grain of rice on his back. He had no thoughts in his head other than delivering the grain of rice to the colony. It was so peculiar, the little ant thought to himself, that he could not remember anything from before. He could not remember the queen, not specifically at least. He could not remember what she looked like, only that he did in fact have a queen. He could not remember his brothers or the tunnels inside the ant hill, only that he did in fact have a home and the colony was waiting for him and depending on him to deliver the grain of rice.

I was always coming up the elevator when Mrs. Miller was coming down. My day was coming to an end and hers was just beginning. Sometimes when I’d be leaving for work in the morning I’d see her coming back. Just before the sunrise. She’d stay out all night and dance and party with whoever would pay her bar tab. So it was only some mornings that I saw her coming home and I’d smile at her and she’d smile back.