under preposition 1. less than: a fortnight to the college fee’s deadline, she is underburdgeted. night shift comes to an end with dockworkers queuing for breakfast rolls. they banter in a mélange of Slavic languages and north inner city accent she fails to untangle. she opens the deli’s oven, checks the temperature of rashers, sausages, black puddings, and wonders: if a stack of purple notes comes my way, would I return it? 2. receiving or undergoing the action or effect of: she enters a one-million-euro terrace in Blackrock. the owner gives her a tour of the grounds. walking past the external patio facing the ocean, he says you don’t need to clean the hot tub. she wonders if a hot tub is similar to a whirlpool, like the one in the hotel where her mother first uttered chemotherapy. she adjusts earbuds into her ears, sprays citrus-scented all-purpose cleaning into the tilled walls, and scrubs it as Freddie Mercury sings under pressure we're cracking / can't we give ourselves one more chance 3. in or into a position below, beneath, or lower than something: the notification lights up her phone as she empties the club’s bins located under an emergency exit. she’s gone. she relives the morning before when the muscles at the sides of her mother’s mouth contracted in a grin as she held the student card in front of the camera. she hears the light thud of a goldfinch against a windshield. somewhere.