It tastes like electricity. He remembers back to high school when he had braces. How they tingled on his tongue when it brushed against them. He remembers when he was in grade school and he would put a nine-volt battery against his tongue. It feels kind of like that. He wonders if electricity has a flavor, or if it just carries the flavor of the metal that it's being conducted through. He wonders, if electricity can carry taste, could it also carry smells? What else does it carry in it? He reminds himself that this is exactly how his mind works. Is it A.D.D.? Or is it just the way a curious mind works? Is there anything wrong with his mind wondering like this? It has to also be a good thing, doesn't it? Nothing is all bad, right? Maybe these are just biochemical reactions. Maybe the electricity flavor traveled from his taste buds and entered his brain. Once inside there his brain had to figure out what this is. It's required to do this. It might be poison. It needs to know so it can send a signal back to the mouth to spit this back out. To trigger that gag reflex. So it passes this flavor on to other parts of the brain. It sends it back into the memory banks. In the memory banks it just sort of rolls through like a puck in that Plinko game on The Price is Right. It's heading in the direction of the memories associated with this flavor, but it sort of gets bounced around. The electricity flavor. Yes, it tastes like that. What else? The braces. Yes, yes. We're very close. It's like both of those things. And aluminum foil? Yes, when he used to chew on the aluminum wrappers of his chewing gum. Why did he do that? The brain does all of these things at the same time. It's figuring out this flavor and associating memories. It's recalling these memories and reevaluating them. It has to learn from these memories. And it has to figure out what this flavor is. It has to do all of these things at the same time. And it has to listen and watch and feel. It has to take all these message coming from the inner ear telling it he's leaning too far forward and send a message to the back muscles to contract and bring him back upright. So many things that his brain is doing at this moment. And it can still give attention to these memories. But his brain already knows what it is. It's not trying to figure that out. It was just surprised. It really didn't expect it to taste like electricity. It knows that metals usually taste like electricity, and this is definitely metal, but it thought it should taste different. It shouldn't be in his mouth and should find a reason to make him spit it out. And he's aware of all of this. He's aware of what is brain is doing, and he's aware that he's aware of this. He wonders how many levels this awareness goes down. Or is it up? Which level is he at? He must be at the bottom. Yes, clearly at the bottom. It's not his brain. It can't be. He knows that he has great memories that he should be thinking about right now. Not licking batteries and chewing on gum wrappers. He should be thinking about why he's about to do what he's doing. He should be thinking about why he shouldn't be doing it. But he can't. He's thinking about biochemical signals and electricity and impulses. He imagines his own mind. He realizes how odd that is that there is an image of his mind inside his mind right now. But he sees his mind and the nerves synapsing like an electrical storm. He knows that it doesn't really look like that, but he needs to visualize something. He sees an area in his brain beginning to glow. Everything is suddenly ultra-slow motion. He has to be able to watch something that will occur at the speed of light. The glowing becomes a red heat kind of glow. Suddenly a white bolt of electricity explodes from this area. It speeds through an elaborate network through his mind. It's amazing to watch. Such an infinite network of intertwining paths, but this bolt of energy knows exactly where it's going. It seems like it has travelled for miles through a dense and fleshy forest. Turning quickly this way and that, but always in a resolute manner. It's nearing his spinal column. He knows that when it reaches the spinal column even his slow motion will have no effect. It will slide down his spine with brilliant speed. Faster than light. It cannot be stopped once it reaches that apex. He thinks he should stop it now. But it is too late. It has reached the spinal column. He's getting dizzy. He wants it to stop. It rips suddenly right and fires down his arm. It finds the muscles in his palm and explodes. The muscles contract to absorb the sudden burst of energy. His finger comes in hard against the trigger of the Smith and Wesson .357 Magnum. The bullet explodes from the gun, but much slower than the bolt of electricity that produced its launch. He wishes it were faster. He waits. It will penetrate the soft palette of his mouth. Yes, there it went. It will impact his brain, which he will not feel. It barrels through the spot that produced its firing signal. And he remembers. It tastes like stainless steel.