“There’s some philosophers too, I heard. Dennett might give one next year,” Alex says. Kierk mimes vomiting all over the table, making the requisite noises, and keeps at it, growing ever more dramatic, until everyone is hysterical.

Atif keeps ordering more of those drinks, and soon the tent of the conversation collapses under its own laughter. Kierk watches in a kind of gross fascination as the empty glasses around Leon grow into a small colony. Carmen keeps lightly touching the arms of both Alex and Kierk. Whenever she does, Jessica lets out a small, barely audible sigh and vigorously stirs her drink with a straw. Greg excuses himself early and there is a minor commotion as he attempts to extract himself from the table. Nearly free, he trips over Mike’s foot and Mike tries to apologize as Greg nods and leaves in a hurry.

“Poor kid. I seriously did not mean to trip him at all.”

Carmen bursts out laughing. “Crab porn! He made neural networks watch crab porn.” She sighs wistfully. “That’s all they knew, the poor things.”

Later, after extracting themselves as a group, they open the door and step into summer night air charged by the storm.

Carmen looks up just as lightning splits the sky into halves, breaking the roof to let in its fingers, and she jumps a bit and then is still, thoughtful, listening to the echoes of the low roll. She rarely thinks about the obvious fact of the matter. Drunk, the idea of a universe that contains both the subjective and the objective electrifies her, awes her, all these miracles living out the minutiae of their days, like markers, signs put out by some greater power saying—KEEP LOOKING! And there is the further thought behind that one: if something as strange as consciousness is real, what else is real? Couldn’t then God be real? How can a universe brought into existence randomly have such a spectacular property?

To Kierk the city has become a dream machine, the consciousness of cars and people and dogs and pigeons and the on/off binary thoughts of streetlights—Fuck, I am so drunk . . .

Carmen is slowly twirling in place. “Alex, fuck, we’re drunk,” Kierk says.

Alex puts his arm around Kierk’s shoulders, sways with him. Kierk looks over at him, his solemn face barely containing itself.

“No homo.”

Alex collapses on the steps laughing, steadies himself on the railing. Kierk thinks about finding a place to piss, dismisses the idea.

Mike and Jessica grab the next passing cab, and Alex has another immature laughing fit with himself as he watches them get into the cab together.