Schema format.

1a. Nonlinear circular narrative structure. Begin with overwrought shopping list description of apartment {N.B.: the more words, the better}. Stream of a caffeinated consciousness meets alienation.

1b. Somewhere sneak in: “flanked by several loosened-tie yuppies who are exaggerating {better: embellishing?} their laughter of Jon Stewart to show how informed they are.”

2a. Tie in with sports bandwagoning {N.B. joke: “Oh I’ve always been a Blackhawks fan, I think Jonathan Toews (pronounced ‘Toes’) is great.” {awkward?}}, then follow with implicit criticism of blind support of Barack Obama: “like one day the city is swept with the dancing-in-the-streets bliss of the election, the next day we’re accepting the lazy political musings of former sports athletes. There’s nothing more infuriating than watching Shaquille O’Neal at a halftime show proudly say, of Obama, ‘Yeah, he’s GANGSTA,’ {reference Chris Rock on Bill Maher instead?} with the exasperating realization that he can’t name one of his policies.” {N.B.: maintain elitist rant but watch tone.}

2a(1) Insert the word “nescient” wherever appropriate.

2b. Not breaking paragraph, continue with ultra-long self-aware rant on perception, winking about how the beauty of multiple-page paragraphs in postmodern literature trumps function; the statement behind this device, so to speak, has far greater value than any direct meaning behind the words. Ergo, if one finds reading Molly Bloom’s soliloquy an exercise in madness, a walk along the edge of the infinite, he or she is nearsighted beyond description. The appropriate response to Ulysses is to flip through the end of it and simply smile at its inscrutability. {N.B. insert the word “ergo” wherever appropriate.}

2b(1) Pepper interstitially with mathematical references, namely the Maclaurin series, to build more of an aesthetic disconnect. Maclaurin {or Taylor?} series will be metaphoric of cultural relativism and solipsism.

2b(1) Conjure bar scene from Good Will Hunting, with undercurrent of frustration à la Flowers for Algernon.

2c. Move away from stilted prose. Dissolve into quick perverse thoughts and observations about pop culture shifts, preferably both. Incorporate “Kim Kardashian” {if too passé, try Jeremy Lin} jokes with simple Keynesian arguments for stabilizing the modern economy, then conclude with lowbrow simile on the adjustments one has to take whenever in an awkward position: “like when you’re on top of a girl while having sex and this weird farting sound starts to happen because your chests are rubbing in a certain way so now you’ve got to reposition yourself differently and that gets distracting.” End with run-on, do not finish thought as were are interrupted by a hyphen–

3a. Begin with, “Eddie is to blame. I took the…” {N.B.: reveal: intern, named Eddie, brought smart pills {“also called ‘cognitive enhancers’” {avoid/flat?}} that he had ordered off of the Internet to the office. Joe Rogan endorsed the pills on the website and on his radio show, so Eddie reasoned that they had to be legit.}

3a(1) Several “smart pills” were ingested just before lunch. No immediate difference had been felt.

3a(2) Exposition. Science behind nootropics {reference Limitless?}. Full listing of cholinergic components.

3b. Description of euphoric power trip, a couple hours after taking the pills. “The veins of my thoughts wrapped themselves…” and “insinuating that she knew exactly what had occurred, when it was evident the vagueness…” and “…could have had the conversation in fifteen seconds, however…”

4a. Back to apartment, in a living room full of strangers. Abruptly stand up, disoriented, demanding to know who they are. The puzzled looks on their faces only infuriate. Sweat drips over eyes. No amount of critical thinking seems to provide answers. “Where the hell am I?”

4b. Feverish thoughts lead to, literally, a fever. A trip to the bathroom proves unhelpful, as splash after splash of water on the face brings even greater waves of nausea. “‘God damn fucking smart pills,’ I mutter.”

4c. Second reveal: over-dosed on the cognitive enhancers {N.B.: better first mention of this word here than in 3a}. Left work fifteen minutes earlier than usual and stumbled into a Chili’s. Drank a giant margarita, then debated about theology with a group of gay pol sci majors, then got invited to one of their apartments afterward to watch The Daily Show.

4d. One of the gay pol sci majors enters the bathroom and makes a pass, saying, “I bet you want to see how left my wing goes.” Dislocate his jaw with a series of martial arts moves that were recalled from watching a UFC fight a couple years ago. Push out of the bathroom and out of the apartment and onto the street. Run into a bus, a sweaty, shaking mess. The nausea is too much. Lights and sounds are amplified, and worse yet, there are too many people on the bus. Everyone is talking too loud and saying too much. Too many thoughts. Almost a drunken state. Take a depressing/macabre turn as yet another wink. After considering jumping out of the bus and rolling in front of moving traffic, thoughts about the Heisenberg uncertainty principle flood the mind: “Paradoxical as it may seem, if the very act of observing me changes my behavior, then I must end this now — not my life, but this story. For not knowing what happens to me next is how I elude any rules that the reader–”

4d(1) Conclude with unfinished thought. Bask in meta glory.

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