615 Pharmacology & therapeutics

When you circle someone for an eon, you undergo a gradual process of self-awareness. The aura of the beloved, normally two inches wide alongside the body, grows to a foot, sometimes two. The eyes of the enchanted are pliable, plastic, and they cannot be relied upon.

So she picks you up and hangs you out on a rafter, out to dry, swinging like Foucault's pendulum, an object oscillating in a circular plane. It's common after an eon of self-awareness, albeit self-awareness that arrives much too slowly, and much too sporadically. Your head's making a sine wave in the air, the rush of blood, a blitzkrieg of blood, breaking into your brain barriers and flooding every single memory except those related to mathematics. Mathematics, as everyone knows, has nothing to do with her and, thus, neither does it you. By imagining a right triangle extending from your arms to the floor, and to the wall, and by estimating lengths, you have a rough picture of the space between you and imminent doom. Too bad it doesn't really change the fact that your cranium's the most pathetic lie concocted on mankind, foramina at the base of the skull cracking open upon impact, imploding like fruit stepped on. The heads of the enchanted are hard, hollow, and they cannot be relied upon.

Shortly afterwards, the hard vacuum starts. It's even more common, after an eon of self-awareness, than the cruel treatment of the beloved, the hanging of rafters, pendulums. Decompression sickness sets into legs, bubbles forming in solid tissues upon descent. You do not automatically boil, nor do you automatically freeze, you do so at the rate of growing self-awareness. Mathematics proves this, with formulas, and it is not afraid to tell you what's what. Or rather, a mathematician isn't afraid, but do you know any mathematicians? The containing effect of your skin helps, but that has its limits, and you'll get pimples if you're stressed anyway. The skin of the enchanted is uniform, yielding, and it cannot be relied upon.

Sometimes, stuff works out. Chambers are re-pressurized, the aura of the beloved shrinks to a an appropriate (while somewhat indulging) size, a blitzkrieg becomes unconditional surrender. Your sine wave is now a sawtooth wave, and she's plucked you from the rafter, tucked her arms around your back so that her hands rest on your stomach. Hey, beautiful, hey. What's not to love? Somewhere, a mathematician is going mad in a box that decreases in size at the same speed it takes the mathematician to find a way to get out. At least he'll die with an epiphany, which is more than we can say for you. The reason of the enchanted is empty, submissive, and it cannot be relied upon.

Spine, support of the body, support of mathematical functions, will probably fail you when you see her. Perhaps your bowels as well, and you don't need a mathematician to tell you just how unattractive that is. The aureole of hair, framing the face consumed by aura, colored deep orange, twisting, twirling around you as she packs! The clammy stare, the eyes, stinging you at the back of your throat! A Polaire, a Mata Hari, there's a graph made, detailing how fast she can strip you of possessions, dignity and dental hygiene (it's well documented that the heart-broken forget to brush their teeth). Perhaps instead of Polaire, polar bear? In any case, the mathematician will not lend you a shoulder to cry on. Mathematicians care not for the weaker portions of the anatomy. Self-awareness always comes a split second too late. What can you really expect, after an eon? The universe enacts its revenge, lovely loving umbra. If you want to appear jaded, I suggest you take up Schopenhauer. Or accounting, maybe then you can recover the funds she stole from you, and maybe a mathematician's grudging friendship. The hearts of the enchanted are rigid, fragile, but they can be trusted entirely.