Halfway up Jane Street to the annual Trekkie gathering, wearing a dark green raincoat in the sun after the August rain, the flames chasing me catch up every time I relinquish my momentum to honour a red light. I arrive at the hotel severely dehydrated, and in the grip of a vision. Sifting through my friend's collection of X-comics, characters work their way to plausibility from the meanest circumstances. Nothing so simple awaits me upstairs, where I endeavour to explain my madness as tactfully as possible to avoid future recriminations. All but laid to rest.
Friends suggest a diagnosis of sensory overload.
Gazing blindly at a colour monitor, wading through someone else's preference for simplicity and ugly formatting, forging ahead with no guide but hope and warnings from gcc, quoting lyrics until everyone leaves, I'm afraid to find out what happens next. Weeks later, I haven't put on the headphones in ages, and the walkman sits in its pocket in the bag of space like a live grenade. Sooner or later, I have some explaining to do.