mouth to tell her about the tumor, a man banged on his napkin dispenser and stood up. “I’m sorry to interrupt,” he said, “but I have just learned that Senator P. has had a stroke.”

“That family is cursed,” Therese said.

I thought, What will I leave behind? A few joules of hiccup energy? My legacy wouldn’t power a sixty-watt light bulb, not for five seconds.

“I have to leave,” I said. “I have just been inspired.”

My inspiration had to do with the mortoscope. Without getting into the details, I’ll just say that I realized how a certain patent could be combined with the kaleidoscope. Hiccups happened to be the perfect source of energy. Like death, the hiccup is an interruption, a biological contretemps, an anti-climactic little gasp. Sometimes it’s important to get the metaphor right.

It took me all weekend to finish the mortoscope. It looked like a kaleidoscope attached to a halo.

Therese came over. She wore a crazy silk top with slit sleeves and a lace back. I explained how I would power the mortoscope by hiccupping in the halo, and she would look through the kaleidoscope. Germs, bacteria, disease—all the bad stuff would glow.

I induced hiccups in myself and Therese strapped me into the halo.

The room dimmed as the mortoscope started humming. She looked at me through the kaleidoscope and gasped. Love metastasized inside of me. “Oh,” she said. “Why didn’t you tell me?” She moved towards me. It was the best day of my life.