By the time Cooper exited the building, it was already stifling warm. He hadn’t asked the girl her name, but he had ogled her apartment. Too tense to snoop during a prior infiltration, he had squandered the chance for a scintillating thrill. As a repeat offender, all tensions had slackened. The saying went, that it was insane to do the same thing over and over again, so he did something different.

  Cooper ogled from room to room, just the main room, kitchen, and bathroom. The simple space glowed in the sharp relief of her abiding glimmer. He smoothed her laundry on a line with mind and mentation only. Her bed looked too short to fit him lengthwise. He might squeeze in sideways.

  When she tapped him on the head, Cooper startled in abject shock. She giggled, thanked him, then invited him out, ending their tiny fling. As per the code he lived by, he felt as fine as he could about it, and still believed.

  “Ummm, I guess I’ll see you later,” Cooper waved as he stepped out her window, onto the fire escape.

  He had left his keys in his own unit, so could only scurry home this way. Giggling, she followed him out and down. The whole time, he thought of nothing to say, not even to ask her name. He noted that she left the window open a crack, so anyone could break and enter, but only if they knew the window was open, as he himself now did.

  Content in his knowledge, he climbed in at his own apartment, convinced that he would revisit her airy lair, triumphant, someday. Whether or not invited, he could sneak through the window.

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  “See you!” she called carelessly as she left him, not even waving back.

  “Well…bye…” he watched her long, shining ponytail swing out of sight.

  “What are you doing this weekend?” she thumped back up the steps, as if an afterthought, or had she premeditated the action all along?

  “What?!” he startled in shock again, then told the truth, “I’m doing nothing this weekend,” then asked, without thinking, “Wanna come?”

  “Sure, I’ll come over!” the girl answered keenly, before skipping away.

  Cooper gaped after her. He murmured to himself, “Is it that easy?”

  Off to work, Cooper tuned into the sound, louder and livelier outdoors. Incessant, it ensnared his perception as he glided along the conveyor. He noted the commuters like him listening. They paused to pick it up, they squinted.

  Though unintelligible, the chant resounded deeply with meaning. It reflected from the urban compactification to resonate in the voids. Through the apertures in the conveyor canopy, it pulsated the sky.

  Cooper fixated the hard, oppressive haze, unclear if his mind fooled him. The atmosphere beat the rhythm, like a drumskin viewed below. He breathed to drink it in. He fed his neurology upon it.

  Gliding onwards, nobody lingered to sample the signal. To his sad eyes gazing lost and alone, nobody else captured the sheer intensity of it all. None gaped as he had. All glided on their way.

  A sight of the sound infused him with an energy that ignited the heat. He found peace and power entangled inside, as if he could aspire to do anything he actually could, as long as the sound surrounded him, and gave him the guts to do so.