The focus takes Jake by his sixth chakra on a Saturday afternoon and drives him, scrambling and skipping, like a doll dancing on a springy plank. The wind of his passage is binary static: he could concentrate on listening and pick out the message, if he tried, but by then he’d be tumbling and ground to chuck.

After it leaves him, he assembles himself: hunched over, alone, sand-eyed with his back complaining. It’s dark outside and the clock is blinking with exhaustion. He’s surrounded by an impossibly intricate sculpture of taut wire.

He plucks it. The room coughs up arpeggios.