But I do know that never in my life have I felt anyone to be as surpassingly Beautiful as I feel Mrs. U. to be when, Pulsed, I am Speaking with high Specificity of her Beauty and she is gazing up at me, looking for all the world as if she may love me.

Does that feeling pass? It does.

But also, it sort of endures.

That is: these days, I think of her constantly, and feel that I love her even when I am not Speaking to, or of, her, and she is nowhere near.

This morning Mr. U. leans in.

“Company tonight,” he says. “We’ll do City.”

So: a long, anxious day. We would really like to Rehearse. But Mr. U. must go to Work. What I do to prepare: think about City, all day. Once we begin, it is mostly us. Our Speaking is being supercharged and made more articulate via the Pulse, yes, shaped, of course, by the Settings, but still, at the end of the day, it is, mostly, us. It is me, Craig, and Lauren, and we do not Speak identically well, if I may say so, and preparation is part (but only part) of the reason why one of us may, for example, tend to Speak better (in a more lofty, engaging way) than the others. There is also something innate: talent, one might term it.

It is not a competition. And yet it is.

What I have found: the more I live, in my mind, beforehand, within my Topic, the better my flow will be once I begin.

Mr. U. calls it: “priming the pump.”

All day I prime my pump, getting to know my City better by thinking about it.

It is a Sad city, yes, for that is in the Settings, but I imagine a livelier quarter of the City, where all the City’s celebration occurs, over there on a small island that may only be reached via canoe (a small fleet waits at a common pier).

What color are the canoes? Have they drivers? What is the direction of the current, as the drivers propel their canoes across the bay to the isle of celebration? Are there fireworks, which light up the faces of the shopkeepers and workers who have scrimped and saved to celebrate there, so that they may, for at least this one night, leave their sadness behind? The fireworks must, I imagine, be reflected, rippling, in the shallow water lapping in the narrow inlets that punctuate the island, along which orange-brown cafés are nestled, strung with tiny lights, lights that bob with any slight breeze, there in the cafés that nightly ring with the sound of the laughter of those relieved to find themselves made briefly joyful.

In this way, all day, while Lauren and Craig nap, I prime my pump.

Lauren wakes, gives me a look, as in: Jeremy, wait, are you priming your pump?