POV: ты чихнул во время речи Ким Чен Ына

POV: You SNEEZED During Kim Jong Un's Speech The badge takes three seconds to check. You have done it every morning for so long that the motion lives in your hands before your mind has finished waking: left thumb and forefinger finding the pin's backing, right forefinger pressing the face flat, a quarter-turn to confirm the angle. Two finger-widths above the left breast seam. The enamel is warm from being pressed against your palm during the walk from the washing facilities, and the small chip at the left edge is where it has always been, a grain-of-rice absence that has been there since before you moved to this dormitory block, before the factory, before any of this. It has never been noted in any inspection. You have checked it every morning the way a person checks a door lock, not because they expect the lock to have failed, but because the world is made of things that can fail, and checking is what you have instead of certainty.