It was Tuesday, August 18, and there was no rosewater left except for very strong rosewater, and Jefferson preferred dilute rosewater. There was a convenience store maybe 1.5 to 2 miles from home, so around 22:40, Professor set out to find that store. The protagonist had been there three times prior, twice by walking, and she knew where to find it. She had spent the evening preparing files, and was eager for a diversion.

It was a grim night. Her first trip had been (at 4:00 in the morning) on a very clear night, and even then, she had been unsettled by her limited vision. The second time, she had been a passenger as Professor drove. The third time, she had walked with the Marquise du Chatelet one bright, sunny midafternoon. This night, the sky was murky with fog and haze and smoke, so that the protagonist could hardly see the path she was looking for, hidden among the grasses. The air was hung with the resentment and grief of the aftermath of hell. The path was across the field, she knew, so they crossed the field. It was a large field; in the distance, the sprinklers were spitting bitterly at the world.

(Exact wording lost:)
Professor: He's taking a bus back to Atlantis.
Protagonist: I thought he was flying back?
Professor: It was cheaper to take the bus back, and it's something he wanted to experience at least once in his life, taking a long trip by bus. What happens if the sprinklers go on right under us?
Protagonist: Then, I'll be very sorry, and I'll make it up to you somehow. How long does it take to get from here to Atlantis by bus?
Professor: No more than two days.
Protagonist: So he might still be on the bus now WHOA, AHHH!

A sprinkler had just reared its ugly head from under the grass in front of them, not five feet away. Its spiteful little eye narrowed, and a jet of venom shot directly at them. Professor hopped away to the right, the protagonist jumped left, and the stream passed harmlessly between the two. They broke into laughter. Even with her work unfinished, it was nice to be off-campus. She hadn't been happy for days; she couldn't remember being carefree since the Friday night preceding.

The road wound atop a huge hill, and the city lay at the bottom, a glittering bowl of sparkling golden lights. Professor had done quite a bit of walking around the area, but he'd never walked to the city. He said he'd like to walk downtown sometime. Then, the headlights of an oncoming car.

Protagonist: Do you want to play speed bump?
Professor (skeptical): How do you play speed bump?
Protagonist: You lay in the middle of the road, like a speed bump.
Professor (grimacing): You hate me so badly?

They arrived at the store a few minutes too late. The store refused to sell rosewater later than 23:00, for fear that doing so would damn souls to hell. It was all very strange. But they did know of a store on Ohm's Law Street. The protagonist thought that was the end of it, but Professor suggested that they make an attempt at this other store. So they continued on away from home.

Going straight ahead did not lead to Ohm's Law Street. It lead, instead, to Boyle's Law Drive. The name of the street/drive meant nothing to the protagonist beyond the fact that they were lost. Just then, she got an incoming phone call. She was supposed to be at a meeting at 23:20, and it was now 23:25, or something. It wasn't that she'd forgotten either, she'd been irresponsible enough to set out despite her obligations. It had been such a long week that come Tuesday night, she simply didn't give a flying fluff. She had said, shortly after they'd set out, that they wouldn't make it back in time for meeting. Professor had assured her that she could blame it on him. She could tell the others, Professor is a bad influence, and he drinks too much. She had protested, and he had modified it to what he believed was a nicer version. This “nicer version” was simply replaced the “drinking too much” with more harping on being a bad influence; it really wasn't much nicer, and besides, the protagonist didn't need anyone to take her trouble for her. She couldn't remember the way back; Professor said that meant the trip had turned into an adventure. He didn't believe in returning the same way that one came.

They came to a fork. The protagonist remembered a happy day long ago, back when all the days had been busy but happy. She had witnessed a small group of philosophe students each holding out a pseudo-random integral number of fingers, and taking the sum (mod 8). Each remainder was preassigned a direction, and whichever direction the sum totaled, that was the way they went. So on the count of three, with 0=left and 1=right, she held out three fingers and Professor held out one. They went left and walked a ways.

They came to a corner, and there, on the sidewalk, in a little puddle of light, lay the spray-painted outline of a Mario mushroom next to a spray-painted spiky sea-urchin-looking thing. It was really very much like a boundary line, that corner, for every step after would be a steep descent downhill. There, on that hilltop, if it were an online RPG, it would have been a respawn point. The spray-paint ellipsoid that made the largest spot on the mushroom's cap was just the right size for the protagonist to place her hand, palm-down, inside its borders. She withdrew her hand and stared at it. It was a little too small for Professor's hand, and he remarked that he'd have to be content to have his fingertips black. They couldn't understand how it had come to be there. It was too late, and they were too aggrieved, for it to make sense anymore.

So they went down that enormous hill, and halfway down, the protagonist saw once again that sea of glittering gold, only this time, the orbs were much nearer. . . .

Protagonist: Hey, is that downtown?
Professor (chuckling): Be careful what you wish for.
Protagonist (incredulous): . . . it's Ohm's Law Street!

Sure enough, there was Ohm's Law Street, and not only that, but the rosewater store stood right at the corner, less than a block away. And they had gotten here by randomized directions! It was all very strange.

So they went in and got rosewater and prepared to lug it back. The protagonist was skeptical about carrying so much liquid uphill all the way back, but Professor was treating it like an adventure and challenge. So she took one of the cases and prepared to haul it back. Professor told her to take the other one, which contained aluminum cans (as opposed to bottles), and was consequently a little lighter. Professor went back inside for a bottle opener, and then they set out on the long trek back. They were about three miles from home.

Professor had once told the protagonist that in a two-dimensional plane, if one begins at the origin and travels randomly, one will return to the origin infinitely many times. By extension, one will visit every point infinitely many times.

(Exact wording lost:)
Protagonist: I've wanted to blog something to commemorate everything, but I don't know where to begin. There's so much that I can't possibly put everything up for public view, but if I say any less, I feel like I'm cheapening it.
Professor: . . . if nothing else, you could put up the refrain to “Do You Hear the People Sing.”
Protagonist: Thanks, I'll do that.

They were now struggling up that hill. By the top, the protagonist was exhausted and too stubborn to admit that she was exhausted. What she said instead was. . . .

Protagonist: How averse are you to hitch-hiking back?
Professor: It would be interesting. Maybe Anaximander is hitch-hiking back to Atlantis.

For a moment, the protagonist didn't take Professor seriously, but during that second, a thought crept into the back of her mind. That sounded very much like something Anaximander would do. A startled protagonist froze in her footsteps. A few steps ahead, Professor turned to look back at her, laughed, and reassured her that he meant it only in jest.

Another phone call (exact wording lost):
Ramanujan: Where are the files?
Protagonist: I'm way off campus and lost; I'll finish them as soon as I get back.
Ramanujan: Do you need help getting back?
Protagonist: It's ok, I can get back. You'll have the files when you wake up tomorrow morning.
Ramanujan: Please. You've been saying you'll have them for days. We're staying up waiting for them.
Protagonist: I'm about an hour off campus. Why don't you go ahead and go to sleep, and they'll be there when you wake up.

They say that one should treat his future self as though it were his present self, especially in terms of work and procrastination. The protagonist had done a particularly poor job of it the preceding week.

Professor remarked that he was hungry. The protagonist suggested that he could get food when they passed by the convenience store again on the way back, but Professor thought he'd rather make pancakes. But we stopped by the convenience store anyways. There was a fluffy cat there.

Professor cannot pet cats; he maintained impressive self-control. For at least a quarter of an hour, he sat in the street with the fluffy cat circling him, and he never once pet her. She was a very cute little whitish cat with brown tips, and she stepped silently except for the jingle of a bell she wore around her neck. But the protagonist never stopped petting the cat, who began purring, thoroughly examined Professor and the protagonist and the two cases of rosewater, and settled into the protagonist's lap. Then a larger aggressive graey cat came by and sniffed everything with a damp nose, and the protagonist pet this cat also. The first cat backed away, her green eyes glowing. Suddenly, both cats stood up and trotted away. The tinkering of cat bells faded away, and Professor guessed that he and the protagonist were no longer entertaining for them. And so, they returned home.

The ending is very dull. They returned home, put the rosewater away, and got back to work. So much was said, and much of it cannot possibly be put down for the world to see. So this next passage, which shall be hidden from public view, will contain the most significant parts of what must remain hidden, as much as she can remember.

It is now about 111 hours since you left. And all this time, I've not known what to say, how to commemorate it in a post. It is 11:00 now.

Tell me, princess, now when did you last let your heart decide?

The coffeehouse is playing Disney songs. Pocahontas and John Smith must have felt terrible when they parted ways. They were friends, but there was no easy way to keep in contact then, so they must have believed they would never see each other again. A perfect example of why this is fouling up so badly. . . this isn't what I meant to say at all.

Two nights ago, Professor and I embarked upon a mission that took us wandering the random streets of the city. Professor had spoken of his wish to walk downtown before this was all over. Unbeknownst to us, random lost wanderings took us downtown. Be careful what you wish for, he had said.

And we'd spoken of you. Professor had told me, if nothing else, at least I could put up the refrain to “Do You Hear the People Sing.” So here it is.

Which brings us here, 111 hours hence. For the first few days since that first fateful day, Desargues laughed away his tears and pounded out that song of angry men whenever he could find a piano and a chorus. And we sang to that anthem for you. That first night, for one moment, it seemed like we could hold on and keep you here, just because there were so many of us and we were all together, and then the dream fell apart. In the end, there was nothing left except to watch you prepare to leave. And then leave.

For the first twenty years since yesterday
I scarce believed thou couldst be gone away;
For forty more I fed on favors past,
And forty on hopes that thou wouldst they might last.
Tears drowned one hundred, and sighs blew out two,
A thousand, I did neither think nor do,
Or not divide, all being one thought of you,
Or in a thousand more forgot that too.
Yet call not this long life, but think that I
Am, by being dead, immortal. Can ghosts die?

--- John Donne, “Computation, The Analysis”

The world kept turning. It didn't seem entirely real that I couldn't just say, where are you? And then walk there and find you there. It didn't seem real that your de facto desk was there without your computer on it. Gradually, it became real. Added to your anthem were tones of wishing you were somehow here again. We were going to sing it for you at the talent show, but Desargues changed it, fearing it was not subtle enough. He made me pinky-swear that I would dedicate to “loved ones who are far away,” instead of dedicating directly and upsetting people.

On my own, pretending he's beside me. . . .

Maybe you'll be proud of us. We ran the second and third rounds of the team contest and held the talent show. We got the letters all written and the files all typed. We ran the print factory, prepared boxes, and did yearbooks. Tonight, there will be a closing ceremony with superlatives and a slide show. We kept everything going. Tomorrow, it will all be over, and maybe then, the whole thing can have closure. I never knew before what people meant by closure, but I think it means when it stops being the predominant thing in drunken blogging.

You were once a friend and father. . . then my world was shattered. . . .

You certainly weren't my father, not even if I search my feelings. A more experienced philosopher, or an authority figure, or something, perhaps. Rereading my drunken text document, most of it is mundane or incoherent or densely emotionally stupid, and there's only one sentence suitable for public blogging. Here it is, with one very minor edit:

Wherever you are, Anaximander, I hope that you're sheltered and fed and happy.

Jefferson laughed and said, I think it was, that the contents of that text document are in my computer but not my mind. That sounds about right in terms of memory. I have no memory of parts of it. But honestly, it sounds pretty much right. Incomplete as it is, everything in there is in my mind, except that I don't remember putting it to text.

It was said, “thank you for bringing this camp to a happy close,” and I heard what wasn't said, and I wanted to scream at the world. But at least an amazing friend was able to fill the slideshow with pictures of you. Terrifying images of that terrifying roaring face. He said they were “precious,” and I entirely agree. At least, they are characteristic of you. They conjure in my mind the fear of standing in the way of a roaring, pouncing Anaximander.

And then look: you see the grain-fields down yonder? I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the color of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat. . . .

--- Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince

Once upon a time, you told me that I sounded like a cat: silent except for the ringing of a little bell around its neck. Ever since then, especially since you left, I've worn my keys everywhere so that they could remind me of the strange, confusing joking of a strange, confusing friend. How ridiculous this all sounds; it must be too late for blogging. It has been 36 hours since I began to write this post; these meandering thoughts ramble on; they have not changed nor given me a moment's rest from the day you left.

Why is it like this? Why should this be any different than leaving everyone on the day originally planned? Maybe it is the injustice of the whole thing that makes it feel so much worse; I don't really know. All I know is that it feels bad, and I feel bad; how long will this go on?

How could it have come to this?

Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened.

Be safe, be happy. I miss you.

There exists a joke that goes thus: a respected philosopher or religious leader or something is dying, and as everyone stands reverently around, he whispers, "life is like a cup of tea." His dying words echo around the crowd until some impertinent fellow at the back wonders, why? So the question reaches the dying ears of the respected dying guy, and he says, "fine then, life is not like a cup of tea."

Life is not like a cup of tea! Life is nothing like a cup of tea. A cup of tea is supposed to be soothing, or calming, or held neatly in a pretty painted teacup, or something similarly trite. Life is bitter and murky, with dark leaves of discontent floating in a disgusting sludge of broken teabags. Not really.

The very air is charged with discontent; the people are charged with discontent. Everyone is tense all the time with each other and everyone around them. Why can't you all just love each other?

Why can't you all just love each other?

Human self-deception is remarkable. But in retrospect, I feel as though I were aware all along, not only of that which was hidden, but of my own deception as well. Of course I knew it all along. How could this have happened?

So easy to hide everything behind pretty words. And I was stupid enough to believe, just because I wanted to, just because it would all be so simple if it were true. Stupid!

There is a variant of Truth or Dare, a strange phenomenon which occurs only at math camps full of strange people. Regardless of the Math option, which, the protagonist can only presume to be the threat of solving a hard math problem, it is the Dare option that produces the most interesting results. Earlier this week, a fire alarm had been pulled, and rumor presumes that Truth, Dare, or Math is to blame. Then, today, it came to the philosophes' attention that some stupid student had thrown a key onto a roof --- the roof of a three-story building.

A few days prior, the protagonist and Copernicus had gone on a mission to retrieve students' objects from the roofs of the buildings. A rubber bouncy ball had wound up on the first-story structure that stood over the entrance of a dorm. A frisbee had stuck on the first-story roof above the dining hall. Copernicus is easily the more skilled climber of the two, so he was able to pull-up himself onto the structure and thrown down the bouncy ball, along with a squeezy stress-ball type thing. Then, the protagonist had stood on a newspaper-dispenser to pull herself onto a roof that connected to the roof where the frisbee was.

This time, there was an outdoor staircase that stood right next to the edge of the third-story roof, with a high fence next to it. Copernicus had looked at the corner of the roof and wisely decided against making the climb, but the protagonist was foolhardy. She sought adventure to the point of lacking perception of danger. But she was scared all the same. Her legs were shaking as she stood on the wall, preparing to jump the fence. She could hear Copernicus muttering, "oh my god, be careful." So she looked down at the corner of the roof that she was trying to attain, put her foot on it, and boosted herself over the fence.

It is freakishly hard to see a lone key at night, even a key on a lanyard, and she didn't know where on the roof it was. Too late, she realized that she should have found the location from the ground first. A roof is tiled with flat, loose tiles, except for a row of solid capping tiles in a line down the center and in four lines to the corners. The protagonist was deciding between crawling along the edge of the roof or along the top. It is easier to hide and harder to get caught along the edge, but also easier to fall. So she crept towards the top, scraping her knees in the process. Then, she moved carefully along the top of the roof with one leg on each side, so that she wouldn't fall. Each time people passed nearby, she ducked down and held still and waited for them to pass. Halfway along the building, the roof joined onto another roof. She did not know where the key was. She asked Copernicus to go around and show her where the key should be.

Finally, she reached the far edge of the roof. Copernicus directed her to the approximate location of the key, and she found it. She strung it around her neck by the lanyard and crept back, pausing and ducking whenever she heard footsteps. At the corner, she found that it was easier to climb the fence when its corner faces away from herself. Now that the corner was facing her, she could not get a good grip. Copernicus braced his arm against the fence and let her step on his hand, and she pulled herself over. She dropped to the stairs on the other side, trembling and excited after a successful mission.

The protagonist's logical mind tells her that she may be pushing the bounds of reasonable adventure, but life is truly exciting. Life is good.

Around 15:30, Anaximander went to take a nap. He told the protagonist to wake him up by 17:00, said good night, and left. When one is sleepy, any time is night. Even, apparently, bright sunny midafternoon.

So 17:00 rolls around. It takes the protagonist a full five minutes to wake Anaximander. First, knocking on his door in random primes, then, a couple of unanswered phone calls, and finally, insistent knocking on the door in Fibonacci sequence. It got up to 13. At last, without getting out of bed, Anaximander pulls the door open.

Anaximander: "What do you want?"
Protagonist: "It's morning. It's time to wake up."

Whenever someone is supposed to unwillingly wake up, that is morning. Even, apparently, bright sunny midafternoon. So Anaximander looks groggily at his sundial, rolls over, and pulls the blanket over his head.

Protagonist: "Do you want to hit snooze? Should I come back in nine minutes?"
Anaximander: "That would be excellent."

So nine minutes later, a very frightened Protagonist found herself again rapping on Anaximander's door in Fibonacci sequence. It was harder this time. It had gotten as far as 21 by the time Anaximander answered the door. He was out of bed this time with a sheet draped cape-style over his back.

Protagonist: "Trying to wake you up is like poking a sleeping dragon in the eye."
Anaximander (pondering): "Yes. I am like a dragon. I do not like being poked in the eye. . . and I can go GRARGHH!"

Suddenly, Anaximader leaps out of his room, fangs and claws barred, bloodshot-eyes opened wide, sheet-cape flying, and howling. A startled protagonist yelps and jumps back into the wall. But it was too late, for in one giant gulp, the dragon had eaten the protagonist as easily as eating a raven (events not to scale).

No, there will never be a rap-rap-rapping, another protagonist tap-tap-tapping on Anaximander's door, nevermore.

Update: So I lied. The protagonist was forced to wake Anax again this morning, only this time, it was much much harder. For half an hour, Anax ignored his phone calls, and he managed to ignore stretches of several minutes each where two of us pounded simultaneously on his door, so that we didn't think he was in there at all. In the end, it took two of us in the next room pounding on the walls, plus another two of us pounding on the door, before Anax, fangs, claws, and all, got out of bed. August 4, 2009.

Update: Here we are again. The protagonist was again charged with waking Anax this morning. She recruited a couple of students, sent them into her room, and told them to pound on the wall. This was the wall between the protagonist's room and Anax's room. Meanwhile, she pounded on Anax's door. Surprisingly, he answered the door fairly quickly. Unsurprisingly, he just went back to sleep. After twenty minutes had elapsed, a suspicious protagonist woke Anaximander for the second time. He insisted he would actually get up this time. He seemed affronted by the protagonist's mistrust. August 5, 2009.

Once upon a time, there was a group of philosophes who arrived in a Camelot for a conference. That night, it got very cold in Camelot, and the protagonist woke up in the middle of the night to find that it was very cold. So she put on more clothes, went back to bed, and was cold for a long time.

The next morning, she was woken up by a girl who'd locked herself out. Now, neither the protagonist nor the girl had a master key, so as they waited, they chatted. This girl had been cold as well. All of a sudden, the author looks up, and what does she see but a heater! So she turned the heater on, and all was well.

So she got the key and unlocked the girl's room. Then, she saw Bernoulli passing by, and he looked absolutely miserable.

Protagonist: "Are you ok?"
Bernoulli (whispering): "I'll tell you a secret. I have no sheets or blankets."
Protagonist: ". . . There's a heater in your room. There should be a heater in your room. If you show me where your room is, I'll show you the heater."

Bernoulli watched in shocked disbelief as the protagonist flipped the heater on. Holding his hands up to the heater's warmth, he muttered, "sweet Jesus!" But his case was hardly unique.

The protagonist wonders why it is that heaters are surprisingly hard to find for philosophes. In conclusion, philosophes would not have survived long in the wild.

Update: It seems that among philosophes, (as opposed to philosophe students,) at least half of the philosophes at Camelot were unable to find their heaters until morning. During meeting, Bernoulli demanded that they raise their hands if they (exact wording lost) "didn't know about the heater until morning and froze to death overnight." At least half of them, the protagonist and her boss included, had frozen during the night with the heater right there. Reaffirming the conclusion that philosophes would not have survived long in the wild, only with a larger sample size this time, so the result is more statistically valid.

Steps taken to protect the innocent, but otherwise, a true account of the events of the night in question from the third-person limited viewpoint of the protagonist, with author commentary.

It all began when Anaximander invited Thales out for rosewater. Actually, it might have begun earlier that day when a group of six philosophes, the story's protagonist among them, had descended into crashing into each other holding sofa cushions, or else testing cans of liquid to see if they were rosewater. Either way, Thales was too tired to attend that night, so the philosophes went without him. They numbered eleven, and they went in two five-seat carts. Four of them, including the protagonist, squished into the backseat of Anaximander's cart. Thucydides spread his arms wide along the backseat, so the protagonist was careful not to lean against his arms and acquire his cooties.

It was probably around 21:00 when the protagonist and the group of philosophes went to dinner at a relatively upscale restaurant. So there they were, sitting in the restaurant, when the protagonist tried to spit half a straw wrapper at another philosophe. Her straw wrapper must have had a hole in it, for the air escaped out the end instead of propelling the wrapper at the neighboring philosophe. But the idea was nonetheless successful, and the air quickly filled with flying straw-wrappers.

A few minutes later, the philosophes were discussing the events of the previous weeks, when a game surfaced. This was the penis game, and it is played thus: the first person says "penis," usually quietly. Each successive person must say "penis" louder than the preceding person, and whoever says "penis" loudest, wins. It is usually played in the classroom, in which case, the winner usually find himself or herself in trouble with the teacher as well for yelling "penis" across the classroom. The philosophes were surprised to find that usually-mature Aristotle had been the one to initiate the game some days past. So the word "penis" began echoing softly amongst the philosophes, for none wanted to yell too loudly in a relatively fancy restaurant. And the protagonist was watching, and she had the strangest impulse to yell "penis." So the protagonist, who really should have been mature enough to know better, acted upon her impulse. Shocked silence descended upon the table, and quite possibly, the restaurant in general.

Although they had come in two carts, they left in three. A few left to buy rosewater. Again, the protagonist rode with Anaximander. In the front passenger seat sat Jefferson. In the backseat, the protagonist sat on the left and Archimedes sat on the right, with Machiavelli in the middle. It was Machiavelli's idea to play the leaning game. Another brief digression follows to explain another strange game. Exact wording may be lost.

Machiavelli: "We should play the leaning game. Know how to play the leaning game?"
Protagonist: "No, what's that?"
Machiavelli: "Every time the cart makes a sharp turn, you lean into the person next to you."
Jefferson: "I want to play the leaning game!"

Even though the protagonist had a plastic knife on hand, she proved unable to prevent an instance of the leaning game. Several turns and a snapped plastic knife later, she found herself fighting the forces of centripetal acceleration. Suddenly, Anaximander took a wrong turn and had to make a very sudden, very sharp, very fast U-turn. But then he realized he had been on the right road after all, so he had to make another ridiculous U-turn to get back to where he was. A great many U-turns later, he found himself outside where he used to live. More specifically, he found himself at a small, familiar roundabout. For nostalgia's sake, he had to drive around the roundabout approximately fifteen times in a row, all very quickly. Even though Anaximander was the protagonist's boss, she couldn't suppress the urge to call him a "douche-tard." Unfazed, Anaximander suggested a game of Poker.

Anaximander: "You know how to play Poker?"

The skeptical protagonist suspected that Anaximander had actually said "Poke-her." Sure enough, Anaximader and Machiavelli turned around in their seats to play Poke-her. Because he was driving, Anaximander couldn't poke with full efficiency, but Machiavelli was larger and stronger than the protagonist. So the protagonist retaliated by poking back in the ribs. She struggled with Machiavelli until Anaximander made another sharp turn, when she was so caught off guard that she was unable to prevent another instance of the leaning game. As soon as the cart was parked, she bounded from the backseat and fled to her room.

As she stepped from the shower, she heard a voice that sounded like Descartes. Descartes's voice was saying something about going to the office for a meeting, or at least, that was the protagonist's impression. The protagonist dressed quickly and hurried to the office, where she was surprised to find the door locked. That was strange; the office was the center of all organized activity among the philosophes; it was never locked earlier than the wee hours of the morning, if at all. But the philosophes inside heard the door turning and came to let the protagonist in. Inside, the drying machine was running with several hundred Smarties inside. Thucydides was carefully grinding a new type of extra-potent coffee on the table and filling a mug with it. The protagonist didn't believe at first that there was anything special about the coffee, but upon inspection, it seemed familiar.

Protagonist (surprised): "It smells like college!"

The philosophes laughed. Apparently, extra-potent coffee is commonplace among college students. Thucydides swore that the coffee was indeed real, and the philosophes flocked to the room on the third floor. There, seven (plus minus a couple, exact accuracy lost) formed a coffee circle on the balcony, taking turns sipping from the mug. Needless to say, it tasted something awful. Coffee always tastes awful, and extra-potent or not, this coffee was no exception. But a few minutes later, the protagonist could feel the effects of the coffee. The muscles and nerves in her face and hands didn't seem to be working as well. It was harder than normal for her to control her eyelids and her limbs; it almost felt like floating in a swimming pool. When she turned around, her perspective of space and distance and balance were a little off. When she touched her face with her fingertips, it felt as though the touch came through layers of something, so that she couldn't feel it very well. The philosophes had warned her that the coffee would make people giggly and relaxed, and not to take too much on the first try. When all the coffee was gone, Thucydides scattered the dredges on the balcony.

This was the first surprising thing to the protagonist: how little effect the coffee had. From all she had heard, she had expected a more dramatic result, but actually, she felt very much the same. Her mind and consciousness felt the same. The philosophes agreed that the coffee was not particularly strong, as far as extra-potent coffee goes. It had been cheap, so it wasn't particularly effective. When the philosophes went for a second round of coffee, she didn't join them.

Inside, they sat in a circle. Most of the philosophes were drinking rosewater, but the protagonist didn't care for the taste of rosewater, so she didn't drink any. Machiavelli and Bernoulli were drinking the most of all, and all throught he night, Anaximander was careful not to drink excessively. So it was a mentally-intact, coherent Anaximander and a reasonable Thucydides who considered taking the challenge to exit through the balcony door and re-enter through the regular door. On second thought, they modified the challenge to exiting through the regular door and entering through the balcony door. Even in her coffee-mind, the protagonist heard the stupidity and danger of the idea. She followed them and watched from the ground as the others watched from the third-floor balcony. Each balcony was edged by a metal handrail with vertical bars. On the bottom floor, Thucydides and Anaximander were standing on the handrail of the first floor balcony, reaching up to grab the ledge of the second floor balcony. Standing there, reaching up, Thucydides decided not to attempt the climb, and dropped back down.

Climbing to the second-floor balcony does not look so scary. If one falls, one has only a short way to fall. On the second floor balcony, Anaximander paused to gather himself. The protagonist watched in horror as he caught the third floor ledge with his fingers. For a moment, his entire weight hung on his arms and hands as he climbed. It was a battle between his strength and the force of something as large as Earth itself; watching him hanging there and knowing his center of mass hung over empty air, and the protagonist was terrified that he would fall and die right then. She heard Thucydides calling out to the spectators overhead, "give him a hand if he needs help," but she couldn't think; she was afraid to look and afraid to look away until his foot reached the ledge. More than a day later, the protagonist still trembles as she remembers that moment.

Back inside, Anaximander seemed quite pleased with himself. Meanwhile, there was one can of rosewater remaining, and the last can must be drank in an eventful way. Apparently, "eventful" in this context means "as quickly as possible." The process goes thus: inside each can, there is an air bubble. One holds the can upside-down but tilted, so that a point on the circumference of the can's base points upwards. This is where the air bubble is gathered. Then, one cuts a hole there with a knife, places one's mouth over the hole, and tilts the can upwards so that the hole points down into the drinker's mouth. At that moment, one opens the tab of the can, so that the air pressure pushes rosewater into the drinker's mouth very quickly. Bystanders then time the length of time it takes the drinker to finish the can of rosewater. The process is known commonly as "shotgun."

The protagonist doesn't know what came over her. But as each philosophe in turn declined to take the can, she felt that she should be the one to try it, if anything, for the adventure of it. No one took the can as Antiphon offered it around the second time. As each person shook his or her head, she became more and more certain. Archimedes already had an unopened can and was already planning to shotgun it. So the protagonist jumped up, took the can, and said to Archimedes, "bring it." The philosophes gathered around as Antiphon prepared the hole and instructed the ignorant protagonist of the process. So she stood over a sink and drank. The initial propulsion of rosewater so surprised her that she almost spit it out, and she felt like she couldn't breathe, but she was breathing through her nose as she drank. In retrospect, she believes it was the carbonation that induced the suffocating feeling. At last, she finished the can and burped. She stood over the sink carefully, trying not to throw up. Rosewater is pretty high up in terms of tasting terrible. Around her, people were applauding and saying nineteen seconds, which, from their reactions, the protagonist assumes to be pretty fast. At last, she pulled herself to the couch and sat down. She heard Anaximander's voice asking, "are you ok?" "Yes," she answered.

Around 3:00, the night began to dwindle down. The protagonist joined the coffee circle for the third round of coffee. Since she'd only had one unit of rosewater, she was only a little affected, so she settled down idly with a pack of Set cards to play while she observed the incapacitated philosophes. From time to time, Descartes would visit the office to bring up snacks or board games. Anaximander, Descartes, Machiavelli, and Archimedes settled down to play a game of Catan. Machiavelli had drank so much that he had wet his pants. At one time, he had looked intently at the protagonist and asked her whether she was ashamed of them or of herself. Unsettled, she kept her responses as neutral as possible until Machiavelli got bored and left. Machiavelli had become irritable, and he whined about the game of Catan, saying that he didn't want to play anymore. Shortly thereafter, he left and went to bed. Bernoulli had fallen asleep upon the ground, and he didn't wake up as Jefferson made art upon him with a sharpie. Soon, Bernoulli's face was covered with phrases like "gay faggot" and "fuck me," while his stomach bore the proclamation "chubby." His arm read, "I passed out twice!" His face and limbs were littered with diagrams of the male genitalia. While Jefferson was occupied with Bernoulli, Thucydides had time to wake up and return to his room before Jefferson could make art upon him. Descartes, who had been mentally intact far into the night before, was now staggering. At the Catan table, the combination of coffee and rosewater had gotten to Archimedes, so that he was showing everyone two consecutive similar names in his address scroll and giggling.

There came a time when the Catan game came to an end. The protagonist believes that Anaximander won, but isn't quite sure. The protagonist remarked that it was interesting watching the effects of the rosewater wear off. Archimedes had become calmer, less absurd. Anaximander asked what the protagonist had observed about him, and she explained, slightly confused, that he had seemed mentally-intact all night. He nodded and said that it was true to some extent. In response to Descartes's query, she answered that he'd been pretty incapacitated at some point, but not terribly so, and that he was mentally back now.

Archimedes slumped against the sofa watching. Surprisingly, he didn't fall asleep. Descartes lay upon the floor and fell asleep. The protagonist tried to wake Bernoulli. He responded correctly, albeit sleepily, when asked 2+2 or 3x3, but when she asked him what was 88x88, he mumbled "I'll have to calculate. . . ." and went back to sleep.

Protagonist: "Bernoulli, what's your name?"
Bernoulli: "Great. . . ."

So she relented. Anaximander remarked that it would be easy to wake Descartes, and sure enough, it was. Descartes woke quickly and was fully aware of his situation and surrounding, listing exactly what he needed to move before sleeping and what he needed to do. Then, he left to carry out his recitation. Anaximander suggested leaving Bernoulli upon the floor, as long as he wasn't cutting off circulation to his arms, but it was impossible to move his arms. When the protagonist tried, Bernoulli just made a muffled grumbling sound and pulled his arms back under him. Archimedes remained impassive but awake on the couch. The protagonist sat sleepily on the floor and Anaximader sat sleepily on a chair. Staring down at the floor, she confronted him.

Protagonist (pointing at balcony): "How often do you do that?"
Anaximander (exact wording lost): "Not that often. . . I used to live on the second floor, so I've climbed up to the second-floor balcony a few times, but I've only climbed to the third floor once or twice before. . . ."
Protagonist (quietly): "It was the scariest thing I've seen."
Anaximander (exact wording lost): "Well, I knew I could do it. I wouldn't have done it if I hadn't known I could. I just went like this, kind of like a chin-up, well, not really, and there was a wall there so I could use it to help. . . ."
Protagonist: "I thought you were going to die."

He was gesturing and describing how he'd made the climb, but the protagonist really wasn't listening to the words or watching the gestures. She was staring at the floor and absorbing the voice that was still there and replaying in her mind those terrifying seconds, and she was calmed to know that he was still there, and that he hadn't fallen, and it was all ok. It was very late into the night, and the remaining philosophes needed to go to bed and sleep what was left of the night. So he stood up, and she stood up. He was facing her, and she was still staring at the floor with her right side facing him, and as he was about to take a step, she reached out her right arm without looking and grabbed his right shoulder and said, "I'm glad you didn't die," and hugged him. She was surprised when he hugged her back, tightly. Then, they stood apart with their hands gripping each others' forearms. He was apologizing for a fake paper, or something, and she was on autopilot giving politically-correct answers, but she wasn't listening, just being glad that he was there, and then he hugged her again. His hugs are intense and forceful; he squeezes hard when he hugs, and he was warm, and through his warmth and strength, she was reassured; she felt his energy as a life force; he was safe.

There is a Latin word, caritas, which translates literally to "charity." A little-known meaning of "charity," taken from dictionary.com, reads "Christian love; agape." To me, this means loving one's fellow man unconditionally, simply because they are sentient and conscious. To a lesser extent, this extends to all things living, simply by virtue of their life, as well as to all things, simply by virtue of their existence. The phenomenon where one looks at a complete stranger, and can say, "I love that person," and truly truly mean it, and want the best for that person, and personally suffer should that person be suffering, that is caritas. It is a failure of English that we have no commonplace word for caritas, instead throwing it together with things like romantic love, passion, even things like loving chocolate, all into one word. It is a shame that philia between two men is often associated with homosexuality, for philia and sexual orientation are different entirely, and as a result, neither term is done justice. But nowhere are caritas and philia so powerful as when one who fears death most of all sees another in danger, one whom she loves not only as a fellow human, but as a friend as well. So the protagonist has a closing message for the world. Take care; love each other; peace.

This is going to be stream of consciousness because everything is new and fresh and angry, and emotion makes for bad logical thought. The three fucktards with their stupid authority and their stupid respect, and I can't believe they took fucking advantage of it, especially at that time of night when there was much to be done, and they knew I'd say yes. And it was just vague enough and in a sufficiently obscure field, that perhaps it is stupid to give people the benefit of the doubt. Maybe it works as a legal idea, but in practice, people will fucking take advantage of that for hours of a person's already-short life, and then they will say, "you're pissing me off." Well, maybe you hadn't known that I can be pissed off too, but I can. I'm not a fucking office bitch; that fucking wasn't funny. You know who you are, and every one of you can fuck off. Did you understand the diagrams? The diagrams make it come to life. . . you can tell which parts were written by [name here]. . . how could you write that? I meant we conclude the result in brackets! Fuck you.