I've finished inhaling the new-glue scent of a hardbound book entitled "3000 Solved Problems in Chemistry." What gives such a fleeting 'high' is the toluene/xylene solvent used for the glue. It's bad, but today's Monday (and a SONA day) so I don't have anything much to do except stare at the book and at the flickering PC monitor.

Inertia and entropy.

After rereading bits and pieces of Allende, Atwood and Mishima, a scene just popped out from nowhere:

He observed her with a disaffected air of a philosopher, objectively taking in the almost-illusory image of her supine body. Her naked back, pale skin flushed with the afterglow of sex, was a study of light and shadow, suitably framed by rumpled sheets and cascades of dark hair.

She looked up at him with her serious grey eyes. He tried to divine what was behind those grey orbs, shot with blue, right there and then, but was unsuccessful. Her air of nonchalance and self-possession disturbed him.

He broke the silence. "Do you have any regrets?"

She blinked. "We live in a four-dimensional world."

"I beg your pardon...?" He hid his feeling of consternation behind the philosopher's mask of his. "That was a non-sequituur."

"Length, width and depth...the fourth dimension is time, which moves so fast. Everything passes by in a blur that I don't have enough time to regret."

A clever answer, he thought, Natsume refuses to reveal anything at all, not even to me.

"If you had rephrased your question, I might give you a more definite answer," she said, batting her eyelashes.

"Well, then, do you regret last night?" His question was direct, as was his decision last night, when, uninvited, he slid open the paper screen dividing their rooms.

Her reply surprised him.

"I don't know. But I'm glad that it's you, not just anyone."