Kierk pauses in his walk—“Yeah it’s a date, professor!” and she laughs and darts back inside. As she leads the research volunteer she’s too preoccupied to register the CNS’s twists and turns as she maneuvers to the EEG lab, only minimally conscious of the veneer of small talk. Her mind is busy handling this new object: a feeling incarnated as a velvet red cube with no hinges and no latch that radiates an organic growing heat. Her analysis continues until even after the experiment has passed in a bemused blur and she has said goodbye to the sticky-haired undergraduate and she is sitting on a stool soaking the EEG cap in a bucket of water to wash it. Looking at her soapy hands she laughs aloud for no apparent reason, her laughter leaving the one lit room and echoing out into the surrounding dark labyrinth of the CNS.

All the lights are turned on. Fingers select music to play from the phone. A notebook is laid on the counter, along with Atif’s pen. The refrigerator is opened and three cans of Red Bull are laid out like ducklings on top of a bureau. A deep breath is taken. Kierk chugs all three cans in quick succession. Soon he’s standing over the sink, nauseous, splashing water on his flushed face. Looking at himself in the mirror he begins to dance to the music, first just his head moving, then his shoulders bobbing along, and then his whole body following. Leaping out of the bathroom into the living room, bouncing off the walls, spinning, arms and legs going along to the beat, grabbing his notebook to hold it like a dance partner, twirling it and dipping it and then taking it on a whirlwind foot-kicking dance all across his apartment, screaming along to the music at the top of his lungs. Then he is ready to write.

TUESDAY

Kierk wakes up and in a spasm of movement turns off the alarm clock on his phone and settles back into the heat and morning shadows, trying to return. But it is impossible to sleep because of the hot quarter of light from the window pressed against his cheek.

Boxers, pants, shirt. Mouthwash? No time. Cigarettes are on the otherwise bare counter, and he lights one in the elevator and holds it hidden at his side as he passes the manned front desk.

Exiting the building is pushing into a wavering syrup of heat. People fan themselves as they walk, keeping to the negligible and contested shade. The concrete reflects the sun back onto Kierk’s face and he squints along with everyone else. At the first crosswalk he stops to look directly up. Between the spires the sky is mercilessly blue.