There is a moment, between waking and sleeping, when the laws of probability have forgotten themselves. There, in that crack between 'can't' and 'do it anyway', a thought slides along the lines like a silky eel. You want something – something big, something smaller than a whisper – but the world nods its concrete head no. And then it happens: you nod back. Not in response, but in distraction. You pretend. As if the staircase to the moon were made of rubber and extended to under your feet as soon as you wiggle your toes. As if the conversation that never began was now whispering to you through the pores of the air. As if gravity were a non-binding suggestion and not a dictator in a crash helmet. You pretend, and the 'can't' dissolves like sugar in boiling water – the sweet proof that refusal has a taste you can skip.