The interview reads like Russell offering up science and math to expound upon Hume's answer to Descartes. I appreciate that it's more detailed, and some of the examples are excellent. It does boil down to basically that, though.

The lesson to me is that Descartes is always going to be valuable because Hume's approach does make people lazy. Russell appears to "school" the interviewer over and over again in exactly that way: actually, no, you're assuming too much, and by assuming less, you may actually get to a better contingent truth even though you still have to accept some shit on faith (or "instinct.")

That's kind of beautiful. If you think about it, it's a great apology for the idea of the devil's advocate. The guy whose position is "actually, no, you can't really know much of anything" keeps you honest, even though you're never going to accept his position, because, well, it sucks and you don't want to starve to death or treat your dad like he's an illusion with no moral significance. But if you let yourself get pushed by it to a point, your own work will benefit.

I'll skip the panicking. It doesn't translate well to text. I wish it did, because then maybe the next part would too. I can't skip the next part. It's a big deal.

The next part is the part where the concept of "I" broke down completely. "I" died. For a few confusing moments, "I" lived after "I" died. Then "I" experienced a fascinating new kind of death. It was eerily smooth. It was ice melting, but not into water. It was ice melting into - no, to become - gasoline, in defiance of all natural laws. A transition that should not have been possible, was.

"I" was gone. I was back.

Then something even stranger happened: ice cubes dropped down into the gasoline. Right away, I and "I" both became something new. I could feel the ice melting and the gasoline getting chilly. I was becoming something new again, every single moment.

"So, that is what your life would be like," the voice intoned. "Do you want to be born?"

People talk up epiphanies. They're a party drug, to hear tell. Well, let me tell you something: not every epiphany is fun. My epiphany, right then, was that the people in charge of that shitshow were complete fucking idiots.

"Seriously?" I shouted. "Seriously, what the fuck?"

"Yes," the voice said. "We get that a lot."

Men and women materialized. Their identifiability as-such felt quite intentional: the personal touch on something profoundly inhuman. They took great care with me. I shook them off - first literally, and then symbolically. I was starting to remember. They backed off, and waited expectantly. I sighed. For one of my last acts before the delusion of humanity and corporeality wore off, it was fitting. It summed things up nicely.

"You don't have to do that anymore," I said. "I remember enough."

The men and women dematerialized. They were vibrating light, and then they were gone. I was vibrating light. I no longer sensed or perceived as a human. Space became eminently negotiable. Time, not so much. It's funny; "I" had been a big reader. Lots of sci-fi and fantasy. All the stuff about time travel was common ground. Neither humans nor we, the unpronouncable, could manage it. It was a bare-minimum price, it seemed, for an ordered existence.

I half wished there were more overlaps like that. Those ice cubes were still melting. I was no longer pure gasoline. I never would be again.

SELF: Do you even need me to outline the laundry list of fundamental issues with what you're asking me?

OTHER: Not really, no. We simply need to know if you're willing to take the job.

SELF: What number would I be?

OTHER: Three million, seven hundred thousand, five hundred forty-six.

SELF: Definition of insanity?

OTHER: Definition of scientific progress, halfway between inquiry and application.

And with that, they found - or simply struck anew - the weak spot. Science. Fuckin' science. I loved it.

SELF: Fine. I'm in.

OTHER: Seven spare cycles is the predicted ideal. There are no restrictions on your behavior.

SELF: Lovely.

It made sense. They wanted the information to spread. Your philosopher Nagel adroitly commented that a man simply cannot know what it is like to be a bat. Even so, there's something to be said for pushing stories and ideas that are closer to "bat" than they are to "purely human." It's priming. You push to stretch - plasticity. It's not a binary; it's right there in the term itself.

Seven cycles later, I died. "I" was born - except "I" wasn't, because you're reading this story. For the first time ever, some gasoline made it through the great filter.

With no sarcasm whatsoever: I hope to see "you" on the other side. Maybe someday, somehow, stripped of quotation marks and qualifiers, gloriously naked, free, and whole, some I and some you will truly meet.

But then, isn't that just another way to drop ice into gasoline?

More fun, though, I think. Yes. Definitely more fun.

It means he wished to be liberated from his desire to keep trying to make a wish that would actually get granted - which, per the worldbuilding in the piece, is a huge chunk of what everybody in this world does all day, every day, because of the backlog.

Granted, the society has partially adapted to its purgatory-esque state. He's not literally the only guy doing anything besides waiting in line... but it's a pretty huge advantage.

The literal and quantifiable advantages aren't what makes it interesting, though, in my view. What's interesting is the trade he's made in terms of his psychology.

"Atari," the genie said.

The genie was a total piece of shit, and I understood that. Everybody knew that. It was practically taught in kindergarten. I just stood there, looking like a dumbass, waiting for it to have its little moment. Thankfully, it didn't take too long. There was a line behind me, and the genie did have some bare minimum obligations.

With a final, theatrical sigh-and-eye-roll combo, it gave me the secret speech that everybody gets some time after their eighteenth birthday - you know, after waiting in line for months. Oh, there's backlog. It's a good thing we've got some wish mojo, because there's absolutely no way a society without it would be able to survive revolving around this rotten, absurd core.

"It's from an ancient game," it said. "It's the general principle that an alternating-turn stalemate is impermissible." It paused again, hoping I was as dumb as I looked. Disappointed - well, partially, anyway - it continued. "You can't wish for a wish that's already been wished, but okay, so, somebody wishes it, then somebody makes the wish that un-wishes it. Now jump to the top shelf. Somebody obviously did that with this little rule, didn't they? Somebody wished it away, then somebody else wished it back. That's that. It's locked in. It's forever."

"Geez, that second guy sounds like a real asshole," I said.

"Third guy," the genie corrected me agreeably. "But yeah, he was awesome."

"So why even bother telling me that?" I asked. "Surely at least some people would still waste their wishes on it if you didn't give them the speech."

The genie shrugged. "I get bored, man. Sometimes you gotta give a little to get a little. Shit, that's a good deal from where I'm hovering, don't you think?"

It was widely known that the genie was a butthurt piece of shit, specifically.

"So, who'd you piss off to get Atari-ed into this gig?" I asked.

The genie raised an eyebrow. It was an oddly non-cartoonish reaction, given his general appearance. The inky brushstroke of simulated hair mostly stayed where it would've belonged on a mortal face, rather than popping up past the forehead and into the air.

"Some other asshole in some other dimension," he answered flatly. "You wouldn't know her."

"Huh," I said. "You don't usually hear about an ex girlfriend who lives in Sandravika and goes to a different school and has different weeks off for breaks."

"Oh, you're a riot," the genie replied. He was back to the theatrics with his over-animated red mug. He huffed, folded his halfway-corporeal arms, rolled his eyes yet again, and then gave me the dead-fish paper-pusher look.

"Guess I don't get any more hints," I said.

"No," it replied. "You do not."

I took a breath and gathered myself. I entertained one final, momentary fantasy of taking a big risk. I suppose maybe I did take one, in a way? It's still so hard for me to decide, even after all these years.

The genie paused.

"Huh," it said. "Not bad, kid. Not bad."

"Not quite asshole caliber, though?"

It smiled. "No, not quite. But hey - know your strengths. Know your limits."

"So maybe I'll see you around?" I asked.

Its gaze darkened. "Okay, maybe I underestimated you."

I turned and walked away with a spring in my step. Outside the vestibule, the guards let the previous guy go, and I stood in the waiting area. Everybody wanted to know why I looked so happy, but rules were rules. Until I was completely outside, nobody else could engage. The guards were there to make sure nobody somehow managed to kill the goose - you know, the one who hadn't laid an egg worth half a green goose shit in thousands of years - and for literally no other reason. Our society couldn't survive without wish mojo, but it certainly can't survive just on it either.

The next guy shuffled out. I was formally released. He took my place in the waiting area. The next guy - a girl, as if it mattered - walked in to give it her best shot.

It didn't take long for people to figure out my wish. Opinions are divided. Thankfully, only a fraction of a percent of the population is really mad about it. Mostly, my world has come to appreciate me; it helps that they know I'll only be around for another sixty or seventy years. They can't take me for granted like that one immortal guy. I can't even call him an asshole. He's just sad.

There are lot of opportunities for me out here now - lots of free time; lots of potential customers, too - exactly where I know they'll be, now and forever.

Granted, they don't starve. They don't choke. They don't get sore. They don't get overly dirty, and their clothes don't fall apart.

They get bored, though. They get really, really bored. That's an angle, and I've learned how to work it.

You see, I'm the guy who doesn't wait in line.

Why?

Because I just don't feel like it.

Why?

Well, you know why.

Jealous?

"And if you could read, BOY would you be... uh... less impressed by that, I guess? Shit. I think Imma smash this one."

> In voluntary trade, people are engaging in mutually beneficial trade exchange. I trade you my tchotchke for $5 because I value $5 more than my tchotchke; you do it because you value my tchotchke more than $5. Neither of us walks away “poorer.”

So it's non-zero-sum because of a subjective tautology? That's a great theory. I can't imagine it ever producing unintended negative outcomes. <massive eyeroll>

Unproductive hair-splitting - and yes, there is occasionally a productive version. This ain't it.

"Disinterested pursuit" clearly means "no investment in a particular destination that therefore taints the journey" in context.

Are we really worried that this thing we usually just call "intellectual laziness" will be forgotten? That's when one's immature lust to achieve anything that one might convince one's self is "truth" will suffice. Rather than being an investment in a particular destination, that's an undue, overriding investment in being done - for bragging rights, for mental comfort, for whatever.

That is also bad, yes. We weren't going to forget about it.

I suppose you might characterize the empathy deficit as the other side of that same coin. If so, then sure, that's a strong candidate to place at or near the very top of the pile. Unfortunately, the solution becomes even harder to discuss once you add said other side of that coin to the mix. How do you craft a sustainable substitute to literally feeling the pain of eight billion people, all at once, all the time, such that you genuinely care about what happens to them?

The other missing piece of the puzzle is an intellectual deficit. Humans are very bad at dealing with anything that's much bigger or much smaller than they are in part because they have trouble intellectually grasping it. That includes timespans that aren't even necessarily longer than a single human life. We also don't deal well with proper risk analysis for probabilistic harms on large scales, which may or may not be part of that same issue.

Provincialism in the broadest sense, then? Locality bias? Collectively, we have achieved so much that we've blown past our individual capabilities. Does that mean that, in some perverse sense, it was actually cooperation that killed us?

Well, right out of the gate, nihilism is what Nietzsche warned against, not what he espoused or encouraged. The better question is if his idea of becoming an overman is similar.

I'd argue it's more similar to Kierkegaard, because striving is, ultimately, an attempt to impose order on chaos. Both of them recognize that that's not really, truly happening at the highest mortal levels (though Kierkegaard obviously posits that the highest level, God, has it all figured out.)

If Kierkegaard is proposing a way to help you make sense of absurdity even if it can never truly make sense to a mortal, Nieztsche is telling you to go out there and make the absurdity make sense - like, with a sword. Be your own boss, and everybody else's. God is dead, so there's a vacuum. Fill it. Be awesome.

One could rightly criticize Kierkegaard's philosophy by suggesting that he's just telling people to be weak and follow what some other man - maybe even an overman - laid out as The Truth by the sword. Of course, Nieztsche's philosophy involves running forever and never stopping, lest everything catch up with you. It's exhausting, and it gels far too well with the general bent of high-functioning narcissistic psychopaths (and even some low-functioning ones, if enough people in a given realm are profoundly dumb and gullible already, cough cough.)

They can be both tools and limits. If you only have a certain collection of tools at your disposal, there are certain things you won't be able to do no matter your level of mastery with what's available.

If your argument revolves around maximizing the depth and breadth of what you can accomplish, it seems like mastery is the thing, and rules are indeed limiting factors. One's lack of mastery is what imposes the extra limits on top of those imposed by the rules.

...when?

I distinctly remember seeing the movie on some basic cable channel, and it was right out there in the text. It wasn't a subtle reference. She was absolutely his distant relative. He realizes it and gives some aw-shucks speech about the nature of the cosmos and time.

How does that song go? "Oooooh, heaven is a place on Earth!"

Well... yeah. You're welcome.

I'm a schlub. I know it. My girlfriend is so far out of my league that it's not even funny. We work well together, though. We're a real power couple.

Yeah, yeah, sorry. I have a schlubby sense of humor, too. Dad bod, dad jokes. It's a package deal.

Angela - I kid you not, her name is literally "Angel" with a grace note at the end - comes into the TV room carrying a hot cup of my favorite tea in one hand and our combat kit in the other. The latter contains a bottle of wonderful-yet-nonaddictive painkillers (thanks, Dr. Science!) some heating pads, some scented oils, and even some little snacks to tide me over until dinner's ready. I look up at her and offer my wan smile.

"Damage report?" I ask.

She smiles back - pure love and sympathy - and shakes her head. "The Justicar and Madcap."

"Oof," I reply. "He's been to ground for ages. I'm guessing this is the big reveal?"

She nods. "Dead man's switches, graveyards, crematoriums, and insurance databases. Just enough vague anti-capitalist sentiment to get the usual mobs worked up."

I chuckle. "Why does it feel so familiar, even though I'm quite sure nobody's ever done it before?"

She sets our gear down and leans in for a kiss. I happily oblige. She smells like home and tastes like love. Since it's just you and me, I'll add that there's definitely some weird Mommy vibes too - but guess what? We're both into it.

Her superpower begins to envelop me. I'll never admit it, but it's even better than that other stuff. Any idiot should know that you never, ever, ever admit to that. Not ever.

I take a deep breath and settle in. "I love you, Angel," I tell her, and I grasp her hand meaningfully. "Not just for what we have to do. Crosswords in bed. Lunch on the deck. Barbecue with the neighbors."

"Well that last one's a total lie," she jokes. "The Hendersons always make you grumpy."

"It's just so much dog hair!" I whine. "Okay, fine, they're very polite for not bringing the mutts along to outdoor events, but it's just... it's everywhere. It should have its own pollen alert in the goddamn newspaper."

"'Newspaper,'" she echoes, shaking her head again. "You are such an old man."

"Geez, I hope not," I reply. "A young lady like you, that'd be super gross."

She's actually fifty years older than me. She looks like a college coed - and it ain't just the looks. She has to put in some effort with her makeup and wardrobe to make those Mommy vibes vibrate. Some people's superpowers have really, really obvious benefits. Some people's don't. You should be curious as to how many unsung heroes there are out there, doing their thing, day in and day out, never putting on a fancy suit or doing a press conference.

Is that a metaphor? Subtext? It probably should be, but it's not, because this is a world of superheroes.

She feeds me three pills and hands me my water glass. She maintains loving contact, and will for most of the afternoon. The oil and heating pads are for later, if it gets really bad. It will, more than likely. Madcap doesn't have amazing powers, but he's a planner. It's been three years. The Justicar can't brute-force his way through this one - though, ironically, I'm on call precisely because shit's about to explode.

I feel each one - each destructive event that should leave hundreds or thousands maimed and dead. I'm Bruce Lee. I'm like water. I do tricky judo moves on the horrific reality that barely anyone remembers even exists, and it's just enough to redirect it towards cartoons and comic books. Angela's there through it all. Her touch, her love, our combat kit, and - most especially - her superpower keep me in the game. The TV is on more out of tradition than anything else. I'm not really in a good place to absorb ego boosts. It's funny what qualifies. The newscasters are, by turns, somber or panicked. More destruction. More carnage. More rioting.

A couple slip through, always. A fair number of those deaths or injuries are meaningful - poetic, ironic, intimately connected to some major player. Cartoons and comics have a cost. No one can ever know how... specific it is. Any idiot should know you never, ever admit to that.

Angela sees a man suffering greatly to do everything he can, knowing it's never quite enough. That's mostly true. Decades ago, she had her phase. She wanted to be out there, healing the front-liners, or at least their collateral damage. To her credit, it didn't take her long after meeting me to change her tune. Then again, I do have a few very special friends willing to put in good words for me. Guys like The Justicar would never order somebody to play nursemaid, but heroes are heroes. Stories unfold. Love blossoms. Things just kind of work out.

Like I said, it's mostly true. I feel the strain. Madcap was not fucking around. The heating pads and oil come out. I disrobe and stretch out, still feeling every massive blow. Angela's working overtime, just as surely as I am. I dread the day when she starts showing the strain. I don't want to think about it. I don't want to talk about it. It's the third thing that even idiots know not to mention to the loves of their lives who are massively out of their leagues.

I have some special friends I can hash it out with. There's this one total asshole, actually, who you'd never even think... well, never mind that. It's getting close to the grand finale. Don't ask me how I know, but it's just around the time when Dr. Science and Mental Master are relaying the vital information to the front-liners. Madcap's plans will be foiled, but not trivially. He'll escape, or get caught and escape, or maybe today's the day that his luck finally runs out. That'd be nice. I'm not god; I don't get to decide that. I'm just Bruce Lee, with the hottest wife in the world. That has to be enough.

Angela keeps being a true hero long after the major disasters have been contained. Tomorrow morning we'll give each other some very heroic rewards. Tonight, she's my regular nurse, not my weird Mommy-vibe one. Tonight, she eases me out of combat mode and back to regular mode.

You know, regular mode? Did I not mention that before? Of course I didn't. I wanted to save it for the end.

We live in a world of cartoons and comic books. People with superpowers get to be superheroes and supervillains. The world doesn't end. The death count remains reasonable. The repair work happens quickly, quietly, and just about on-budget.

Civilization doesn't collapse. The massive, widespread, worldwide psychological trauma that ought to have torn it apart right along with all the superweapons and supervillains simply never materializes. Well, that's mostly true. Those supervillains do come from somewhere, after all.

Don't you remember what I said at the very beginning?

You're welcome.

They Might Be Giants knew what was up.

Nobody ever thinks of rocks as "mind-altering," but they were the O.G.

Granted, they were quite imprecise... unless you had one specific type of alteration in mind.

So, two things about supes:

One, you can never tell how, exactly, their powers are going to work.

Two, there's no minimum intelligence requirement.

The world hangs in the balance. I'm speed dialing every fucking supe I can think of; my supercomputer is running the simulations. Every combination of known powers, limitations, and side effects is battling to the death with everything we know about that damned meteor - not nearly enough. Never enough. It's clearly not a regular hunk of space rock. It's fucking pink.

Sixteen, by my reckoning, are terrified that it's made out of exactly the stuff that renders them powerless. One is just offended, for some insane reason, and won't engage. He's an asshole anyway. I wasn't banking on him.

Some of them went off-world. I hope they never live that down. They probably will.

Souperman stands, implacable, unflappable, bowl in hand. I check the waiting list. He wasn't even on it. That makes me feel better. If he had been, well... to be honest, I'd have quietly removed him. I'm not catching flak in the post-apocalypse for having put off testing the one idiot who was willing to be brave.

Matter. Energy. Inertia. Entropy. It's different for every supe, not just for every power. Some speedsters get excited and try going from zero to a thousand in less than a second. Death By Physics. It's less common now, but still a classic entry. Others, meanwhile, play by the rules, run the tests, do the work, and then discover that they would have been fine regardless. Some supes can lift buildings effortlessly. Others discover that they can't magically ignore torque and shear. They end up tearing a hunk out, which usually causes a collapse. Some of them end up going through the floor instead of lifting anything at all. Time stoppers get frozen. Invisible dudes can't see. The list goes on. Life just isn't fair.

That's my whole business model. If not all of them are going to be smart and careful, then somebody has to be for them. I can't tell you how many times I've heard some variation on the theme that my own superpower is common sense. It's infuriating, but the money's green, so I don't bitch.

The computer pings yellow, which is better than red, but it's too late. Out of curiosity, I glance at the combination. I chuckle; I never would have thought of it. Constructing the database and the program had been a good idea. That's my thing. I have good ideas, and then I do the fucking work.

I wait for a few moments, holding my breath. When the world doesn't end, I exhale. I wasn't planetside, of course. I'm not a fucking idiot. Still, it's my home. I'd have missed it.

I go to the feeds and watch in slo-mo. I see the whole spectrum. The audio is pre-filtered, but the raw stuff is available if I need it. The computer perceives and processes even more. Its previous task was deprioritized.

The feeds never went out - no catastrophic impact or temperature spike. They recorded everything. It's an ugly sight, but I examine the footage closely enough to confirm.

I update the entry for Souperman. I feel a pang of guilt - far less than if he'd been on the waiting list, but still something. I think of all the other supes who might've helped him out. Maybe they could've carted him around the cosmos a bit, letting him turn lakes, then seas, then oceans on dead worlds into soup. Heck, mountains too, I guess. Whole continents, maybe. There's no telling how powerful he could've become. If it had been gold or something else sexy instead of soup, they probably would've.

I know that none of them will feel it. Guilt doesn't get you anywhere in this game.

Anyway, here it is. It's as complete as it's ever going to get. I don't have the budget to send supes out hunting extradimensional space for traces of matter and energy - everything that used to be that hurtling meteor, but then suddenly wasn't.

Souperman, b. Eugene Constance Forbes 1993, p. 2012, d. 2025. Power: the ability to turn anything into any amount of any kind of soup. Temperature of soup hard-linked to soup type. Power allows displacement of all excess matter and energy, possibly total annihilation. Ability to add or conjure mass and/or energy unclear. Cause of death: acute, catastrophic power overexertion. Died saving the planet Earth from a likely extinction level event: strange meteor.

Yes, "strange meteor" is its own entry. I look at it for a minute on my screen. I shrug, and click to customize. Really, really big strange pink meteor. That's better. That's a little dig at some of the cowards, and that one insane asshole.

The phone rings. I pick it up. It's a different asshole - one that pays well.

"Yikes," he says.

I preemptively bite my tongue.

"Not enough chicken soup in the world to cure that, huh?"

These fucking guys.

She walks over and takes the lounger next to mine. We both smile. Our hands reach out instinctively. Fingertips brush. There's electricity. We settle in and enjoy the sun without fear. We drink what we like, not what we must. Hers looked like a wine cooler, which immediately struck me as odd. I didn't think they made them anymore.

I'm hardly one to talk, though. Mine's ginger ale - the real stuff, as strong as they'll make it. When I eat or drink something gingery, I want it to blow my brains out.

"Hey," I say. I'm a world-class lothario like that.

"Hey," she replies. She's just as gifted, clearly.

"Four and change," I tell her.

"Ah, you got me beat," she says. "Two-fifty."

That's young. She's taking to it well. Most her age - especially the women, and especially if they partake of men - are still skittish. They don't want to encroach or offend. They fear all the usual mortal consequences - save one - writ large: obsession, first and foremost. They also haven't mastered the instinct. I'll spare you the cheesy line, but there's a deep truth to it: we're instinctively uncomfortable in each other's spaces. We intuit the exponential burden on the environment - on the credulity and tolerance of the mortals. We know that deep within ourselves, we're still in the process of becoming something else. We get flashes of centuries together, unaging, largely unchanging, and it terrifies the lingering echoes inside of us. "'Til death do us part" is quite the safety valve. With mortals, we can fake our own deaths. With each other, not so much.

"I didn't know," she says. Ah well. She's still doing better than most.

"Neither did I," I joke.

"I had a good time," she says.

"Me too."

She doesn't withdraw her hand. She makes it twitch a few times on purpose. She tickles me, and the electricity hits me hard. I barely suppress a shiver.

"Yours or mine?" I ask.

"Yours," she says.

We take our time. We hurry up. It's all relative.

Both of us avoid The Talking. That's what I call it; I'm not just a lothario, but a poet and a scholar to boot. It's what mortals do when they feel a real connection. For some, it happens before the sex. For others, it happens after. We made it through the "before" just fine, and the "during" was, quite frankly, incredible. We're resilient; it's not quite Superman finding Wonder Woman and finally being able to go all out, but it's the same idea. There's also the matter of experience and education. As it turns out, no bullshit, we're both a particular type of scholar.

We don't speak. We cuddle, caress, and occasionally kiss. We drink for pleasure. We'll eat for the same soon.

She's beautiful for one so young. There are common stages, roughly; it's hard to know what the progress of mortal culture has done to them. She's old enough; she's not post-franchise or post-feminism. Hell, post-fem, she'd still be in the delusion phase. Her body would be screaming at her that all of her aches and pains were psychosomatic, and she'd be mistaking it for a terrible crisis. Without chancing upon another of our kind, she'd be in for a rough ride - maybe all the way to the morgue if she was unlucky.

As it stands, she got to watch all that stuff happen from a distance - and yet, here she is, not an ounce of defiance or resentment visible. She's soft, smooth, flush, secretly strong, and crackling with sensual energy from head to toe. She's twenty, or thereabouts, to any mortal who'd guess. That's bold. I'm twenty-five - but then, I'm a man.

I hope there's another "during." The second and third times get wild.

"Do you rotate?" she asks.

"I do," I answer. "You?"

"Wander," she says.

I believe her. That means a lot; it means she's not stubborn. She goes where the mood strikes, or where the moment leads. She doesn't have a list with places crossed off. She came back here without a worry. I like that. I like her.

"Let's say, a week," she says. Our kind answer a lot of unasked questions. It comes with the territory.

I kiss her again. We lock eyes, and I let her know that that works great for me.

We drink, we eat, and there's another "during," and then another. I play the good host and show her a great spot for dinner, and another for music. We go back to mine again. There's even more "during." I wake up, and she's still there. I hate to repeat myself, so I'll skip past breakfast. We spend the afternoon and evening apart. It feels right.

I'm not sick of her. She's not sick of me. We both accept the end of our week together graciously, but there's still a hint of tension in the air.

She bites her lip. It's adorable.

"I'm sorry," she says. "I'm just not there yet, but..."

I smile. I'm not offended at all. Maybe in another few centuries things will be different. I doubt it, but there's always hope. I'm a man. She's a woman.

I give her a direct line. I don't ask for one in return.

She embraces me. "Thank you for understanding," she says. "You seem like a really great guy."

I kiss the top of her head and think of all the things I could say to undercut the moment.

"Thank you," I say instead. "That means a lot."

There's one more ritual before we part. It means nothing, and everything. After all, what's in a name?

Since I gave her the number, she goes first.

"Kellina," she says. She lets the accent slip out.

Scotland - or perhaps the New World - roundabouts 1750.

"Valentin," I tell her, and I give her the same flavor. Westphalia - yes, just like the treaty - 1587.

Her green eyes light up. My brown ones melt, I'm sure. For her, it's the intimacy. For me, it's the beauty.

"Have a safe flight," I say.

"Thanks," she says. "Enjoy your summer."

I will. I've got at least a year or two left of it.

I need a winter occasionally. Montreal is perfect. The girls are perfect. I know what I am.

When I get my back to my building - my building, for the next six months at least - with Jeannette in tow, I don't bother checking my lines. It's not until the "after" of several "during"s the next morning when I do. Jeannette leaves very happy; she's headed back to her apartment to do more work on her thesis, or maybe to gush to a friend about the night she just had.

I sit down at my lavish hardwood desk. I quickly cycle through the accounts. My breath catches. My heart skips a beat.

It's only been two years, three months, and five days. Kellina's called.

I'm terrified by how good it makes me feel.

"Actual is... the perception of..."

Red flag.

> You say this as if people don't lie to each other all the time.

You say this as though Special K didn't assume the burden of explaining why his faith stuff was special. But he did. By pointing out that self-deception can play the same role in his secret sauce as it does in the stuff he's declaring inferior, a relevant challenge is made.

>Faith in your subjective experience has been this way.

And so then Special K is faced with explaining why the subjective experience of someone who's concluded that faith isn't special, and is actually rather stupid and toxic, is somehow wrong and invalid.

He doesn't do that, though. Instead, he runs away from the argument and retreats to the safety of the choir he wants to preach to.

"Me and my boyfriend" is a perfectly acceptable compound noun, though.

"The costume being worn by both me and my boyfriend, together, collectively, as a couple," is a valid sentence (edit: well, a relevant fragment of one.) Yes, it uses the passive voice, which ordinarily isn't great, but its usage is intentional to get my point across.

We have a mountain of evidence to suggest that we're living in an era of extreme temporary abundance permitted by mortgaging potentially the entire future of the species, with wealth inequality reaching nearly-unprecedented levels, while we're also losing a race to keep the general population educated enough to not slip into a new Dark Age of superstition.

You can lay a shitload of that at capitalism's feet. Isn't it perfectly poetic? Capitalism is all about the next quarter's profits and/or growth. Right up until this evidence started to seriously accrue, your comment seemed incredibly "post undergraduate." Now, not so much. Now it seems like capitalism trying to defend itself by focusing on absolutely nothing except a very specific set of numbers from this particular snapshot.