In a realist short story, Kim works as a debt collector. She tells herself she is "teaching responsibility." When she calls an elderly man, he apologizes and mentions his wife's medication. Kim hears her own mother's voice in the man's tired breathing. Kim offers a payment plan that bends the rules. Her supervisor later praises her "numbers" and hints at a promotion. Kim feels nauseated. She didn't bend the rules to help the company. She did it to help the man. At home she drafts a resignation email, then deletes it, then prints it out and folds it into her wallet like a threat she's holding against herself.