He got into bed at 11 and began the reading. A currency collapsing, a coastline on fire, two experts disagreeing about which decade it would be. By 1 a.m. he could summarize the situation in six countries and had formed a position on all of them, none of which he would ever be asked for, by anyone, at any point.

Under the covers the phone lit his face from below and the cotton glowed blue from the outside, a small tent nobody came to. On his desk sat three unopened letters from the university, a lab renewal he'd missed, and a voicemail from his sister marked 11 days ago. He knew the death toll in two hemispheres to the nearest hundred. He did not know what the letters said.