He ends up sitting on the steps at Union Square having been given a cigarette by a passerby. Away in the dark he hears the chants of “Hare Krishna” as outlines of robes move back and forth. Craning his neck up he can see that there are now stars over Manhattan. Exhaling smoke, listening to the babble of the human river around him he thinks that he’s close. Closer than he’s ever been since leaving Madison. After all, he’s really been doing his own research on consciousness since coming to New York. His claiming to do anything else here has been merely a halfhearted ruse, he knows now. Maybe this time with the right momentum he will jump the explanatory gap on the horse of the city, and so with the blackened outlines of gothic spires looming around him Kierk decides that from here on he will only work to solve the mystery of consciousness, and damn them, damn them all if they didn’t like it.

FRIDAY

Kierk wakes up and immediately regrets it. He’s actually unsure exactly how long he has been awake. He may have come to consciousness moments ago or maybe this is his second or third resurgence. There is a timelessness to his thoughts, such that he begins one only to realize he’s already thought this thought and arrived at its conclusion and is starting it again. Beyond him, threatening, the day promises pointless toils, and there are umbrages of the quotidian menacing from yonder his blanket, taking form before his sleepy impossible-to-open eyes in the image of the busy lab, with people bustling about and sitting down and standing up and then sitting down again and looking at screens and moving pixels of light around on the screens into different configurations, and it seems so pointless and stupid that there is just no reason to do anything but drowse within this warm pool of sheets and comfort. Kierk does not want to get up.

But he does. He has to. After flipping the light switch up and down to no effect he brushes his teeth in the dark before leaving for work.

About a block away from his place the power is already back on, but it’s spotty; he sees at least two blocks with no power during his walk. The streets are so hot that everyone has their lips pulled back like the day is performing oral surgery on them. The light lances at everything, stabs at the city on its table.