“Okay, Mom, here’s what they have to do.” Ohmie detailed what the neurosurgeons would be doing to his brain. “See, my diencephalon isn’t working properly. I’ve demonstrated that to everyone’s satisfaction. The beauty of the procedure, Mom… Mom! The beauty of the procedure is that it’s transitive. You know, basic associative and transitive axioms. Mom! Are you even listening?”

Ohmie was a prodigy. He graduated from college when he was twelve. Then he couldn’t walk and chew gum, literally. He couldn’t walk and listen at the same time. He couldn’t walk and interpret what he saw at the same time. That was their first clue that Ohmie was suffering from some disorder. First thinking a tumor, all the tests concluded a problem above his brain stem – his diencephalon associated closely with the thalamus. Ohmie’s relay station, responsible for relaying information not only from his sensors to the various parts of his brain, but also relaying information between parts of the brain had, for whatever reason, locked up. It wasn’t too much different from a computer hard drive locking up, files and programs refusing to communicate with one another – the old roundy-round game.

Gaining his mother’s attention, Ohmie continued explaining his invention, the invention to be inserted up his cerebral aqueduct to his diencephalon. “See, Mom, it’s a titanium-irridium alloy. The device is assembled under pressure. And once let go, it will project outward, like a watchband spring, or a toilet-paper rod.”

Mom’s focus sprang to her son.

“I thought that one would get your attention,” Ohmie declared.

“Yay! It worked!” Ohmie announced after the surgery. “Watch me blow bubbles, walk, and juggle all while singing Supercalifragilistexpiallidocious at the same time.”

The first clue of a hiccup came when Ohmie picked up his violin. His warm-up exercise refused him. Fingers of his left hand behaved properly, as did the bow-holding fingers of his right. The middle, where the gut met the strings was almost like an electrical arcing. The two elements wanted to weld together.

“Mom!” Ohmie yelled. “Mom!”

“What is it, Ohmie honey,” Ohmie’s mother had never before heard Ohmie in full panic.

“It’s in my brain, Mom. I can feel it. The left wants order and structure, and the right side wants improvisation and creativity. They’re fighting!”

“Honey, maybe you should lay the violin aside for the time being and let them settle down.”

Unable to make a single trill, Ohmie could do nothing else. In a final muscled effort, Ohmie stroked the bow across a single string. The resonance simultaneously appeased, and appalled Ohmie. His mind both demanded a structured, consistent note, and welcomed the soothing, pulsing, resonance. Ohmie quivered and shivered as he cast the offending bow aside.

“Are you still going to the movies with May this afternoon?” Ohmie’s mother asked, bringing a huge smile to Ohmie’s face.

“I’d better get ready!” Ohmie declared, scampering and bounding up the stairs as might a greyhound racing dog.

“Mom!” Again, Ohmie’s mother raced after Ohmie’s panicked scream.

“Mom! I can’t make myself put on a red shirt! Watch my hands.” Ohmie had on a pair of maroon denim shorts. “I want to wear that red shirt,” Ohmie said. “I like the contrast, and I think the two reds complement one another. But at the same time, I think they aren’t compatible. The relative amplitude and wavelengths of the oscillating frequencies are out of sync and my hands are the battlefront. Watch ‘em vibrate.” Ohmie’s hands were quivering, neither gaining toward the red shirt that he wanted, nor the green one next to it.

Ohmie’s mother pulled a gray shirt from a bureau drawer and snugged it over Ohmie’s head, blinding him, before leaving the room, not saying a word.

“That’s not logical,” Ohmie said to May, exasperating her and all the people sitting near them in the theater with his constant, chattering criticisms of the movie. “Even at a hundred times the speed of light, it would take three-and-a-half lifetimes to get from Andromeda to Xentauri. But, then, the fantasy works.”

Confused, May asked which it was: believable, or incredible? Ohmie just looked at her, his popcorn-filled mouth agape.

Walking to the door, having been asked to leave, May asked Ohmie if he would like to ride the nearby Ferris wheel while they waited for the prescribed time for May’s parents to pick them up.

“I’d like to, May. Throw caution to the wind, totally ignore safety and be daring, adventurous! But the spontaneity… we didn’t plan for this at all!” Seeing May’s confused expression, Ohmie quickly followed his reasoning. “Oh, I know it’s safe. No one has ever been hurt there. I just don’t believe it’s safe.”

“Ohmie,” May began solemnly once she perceived his dilemma calmed. “You know how my grandpa always says to give everything that acts up a good kick? Those old electric motors that would bind up, he’d just give ‘em a good kick, and off they’d go, purring away.”

Ohmie eased away from May, sensing her direction.

“Suppose I could slap your thalamus, holistically speaking, into rational behavior?”

After a moment’s pause, Ohmie stopped walking. Facing May, he said, “Couldn’t hurt… much.”