My brain is a spanked beehive of activity for about fifteen, twenty seconds before I fall asleep. Last night included a fairly realistic re-creation of a recital at my high school, something sparsely attended, during lunch, so not a big nighttime production—

(I may have already mentioned how much I like houses lit up from within right before it gets completely dark outside, and how much I like office buildings lit up from within very late at night, but I should add that I also like school buildings lit up from within at around eight or nine at night, esp. when it’s one of those one-story school buildings that looks almost like a motel if not for the construction-paper-and-cottonball art projects taped to the windows.)

—just some of the in-house geniuses playing music, and there was the shy cello prodigy with the super-sensitive ears who was also no slouch at math and had no TV at home, and she tore up the joint, as usual. Then she stood to one side as her boyfriend, another genius at math, and science, and, almost as a weird afterthought, badminton, played—expertly—the violin (this is only in my mental re-creation; I’m not entirely sure if that’s the right instrument). And we all elbowed each other as the cellist started unconsciously stroking the shaft of her instrument, captivated by her boyfriend’s performance.

But it took until last night, a good fourteen or fifteen years later, to sit and wonder about their sex life, whether it was awkward and tentative, which is what I would’ve assumed back then, or elaborate and super-secret, or just regular, or Genius Sex (something I obviously cannot envision so I’ll just leave that title as-is), or if it only existed in the mutual appreciation of each other’s virtuosity, hanging there in the air for us to raise eyebrows at.

After that I thought about being able to shoot long streams of fire from my hands and what that would feel like. I am not kidding.