You recall a collection of your former lovers, all of them baffling your memories with their distinguishing features. Portions of their eyes are captured in tulip-shaped verbs. Other parts of their bodies dissolve in comforting broth.

They have no influential doppelgangers and no strings connecting them to unwilling collaborators. A thin layer of green keeps the pathogen’s host from achieving critical mass.

We test the glass only to find that the glass is hot to the touch. Later, we describe a world in which the sclera fills the ear with white noise.