Steven picked up the pace as he exited Girard Station and then turned the corner to N Front Street. The solution was on the tip of his tongue. He needed to get back to his laptop. Fast. He sipped in a strawful of boba tea.

He passed a hijabbed woman singing, her hands cupped in prayer. She looked at him knowingly, yet her glance met the clench of his temples, a muscular effort to split the world in two: there the world of his inspiration, and, outside of it, elsewhere, perhaps a singing woman. His world returned to flow. As Steven walked on, passersby gave him stares as he murmured to himself: “Map qualiaspace onto…n-dimensional object…comparison to holistic field computing.”

“Hey!”

Steven startled, knocking his hand into the metal scaffolding around his building. His boba tea went plummeting to the ground. As it hit the sidewalk, the top burst open, and purple taro liquid with tiny black tapioca spheres spilt outward along the cracks. Along these cracks something else happened: reality seemed to fracture and rotate into mirroring walls.

“Oh shit,” he heard someone familiar say, “My bad, I didn’t mean to––“

“No no, it’s alright, I wasn’t paying attention. I, uh…” The sidewalk had returned to normal. “…I have a lot on my mind.” Steven shook his head. He quickly put the key into the front door and obligatorily held it open for his flatmate, Greg.

“I feel you,” said Greg, “I just got my iPad back from the Apple Store, and they said they’d fixed it, but the screen keeps going all glitchy, look––“

Steven clenched his mind, just barely holding onto his idea from earlier, as he and Greg walked down the hall of their building.

“––and I can’t access any of my apps. Hey, are you all right?”

“Yeah, sorry, I think I’m close to a breakthrough for a theory I’m working on.” Steven fumbled for his keys again and then opened the door to their apartment.

“Oh, sick. Hey, the new episode of Tribes of Galaxia just came out.” Greg turned on the TV and started flipping through streaming services. “Wanna watch?”

“Self-organizing principle of…“

“What?

“Talking to myself. I’m headed to my room to do some work.”

“Work. Yes. Steven. Work. Hard. Always.”

“Ha.”

“All right, well let me know if it’s too loud.” Greg said as he turned up the volume.

Steven close his door to sound of battlecries and clashing swords. For a moment he stood, clearing his mind of the weird visual illusion that had happened outside. Then he sat down in his deskchair, opened his laptop’s notes app, and tried to focus. “Internally-bound states with…“

There was a knocking at the door. Steven opened it. “Hey Elise.”

“Hey,” said his other roommate, “Did you see my text?”