But something is happening to me—or happening again. I can see the words coming out of his mouth, see them written but not hear them. "Parabolic" comes with diagrams, mathematics intimately experienced as touch. I feel it, I understand trigonometry the way you understand the smell of cooked meat. I don’t need a pencil. I can do sums with my tongue, impossible complexity. Impossible. It hurts like opening your mouth as wide as you can, the corners bleeding as you stretch. Please, no one say "universe." I don’t want to—