I recognized her on the second day. Not her face. I recognized the posture. The particular way someone sits when they are trying to locate a feeling in the right place and failing.

Notebook open. Pen in hand. Not writing.

I sat down nearby and said nothing. Sometimes that is the whole method.

After a while she said: “I wrote the paper that made this possible.”

“They implemented it correctly.” She paused. “That’s the part I keep coming back to.”

“I keep trying to find the flaw in the engineering,” she said, “so I can locate my discomfort there.”

“And?”

“The discomfort refuses to go there.”

She looked back at the wings.

“Either my question was flawed from the beginning,” she said, “or the world is. I can’t figure out which would be worse.”