“Practice on me,” said his friend.

“I don’t-”

“Give it a try.” His friend adopted a feminine posture. “So, handsome, what do you do?”

“Um,” he said, disconcerted. “I’m a technical writer.” He sensed this wasn’t enough.

“On the macro level,” he added.

“Macro level.”

He nodded. “Things are more interesting subatomically.”

“Mm-hmm,” said his friend.

“Subatomically, writing is arranging charged particles on magnetic media in meaningful patterns. In truth,” he said triumphantly, “I am a quantum me...