The sweet shop on the corner sold fifty-seven flavors of ice cream. Crazy, madcap flavors like Ganesha Crunch or Coconut Chakra with almonds. He had no idea...fifty-seven flavors. Where do they get it? Where do they keep it? Frozen desserts confused and delighted him in equal measure. He knew how to wire plastic explosives to a telephone. He knew how to speak two dozen languages. His knowledge of ice cream could be distilled down to salt rock, cream, sugar and frequent, constant agitation.

Agitation.

He peeked in the window and didn't see much. The lights were off, the little old woman with the tree-trunk scooping arms was gone.

Fifty-seven flavors and he couldn't get a lick.

2:30am

It wasn't that he couldn't sleep. It's that he, the Insomniac, could not sleep. Not ever. So now, jonesing for some Kali, the Goddess of Chocolate Death Swirl, he beat feet to the all-night convenience store. The clerk was Pakistani, hated whites and was a far cry from the kindly little Punjabi confectioner.

2:36am

A long time ago, Erol had been to those places. Far off places. Far-out places.

2:37am

He leaves the store with a pint of Hood tri-color and sits down at a bus stop.

3:15am

The Night Owl line rumbled past. His fault, really. Erol was wrist-deep into the carboard container and didn't even notice the bus roll up and then depart. He'd call one of his mates or walk or take a cab. What else would he do? Glue the cockpit and landing gear on the B-2 he built out of matchsticks?

He pulled out a notebook and continued writing out the numbers of pi in the margins. Everyone thought it was some kind of secret spy code (the Insomniac had a Polaroid-powered memory and never needed to write anything down).

Not a code...boredom.

3:23am

The average person spends a third of his life asleep. The average male's lifespan nowaways is what, eighty? And that's plus or minus a few for good (or bad) behavior). That's twenty-six more years of waking life. That's Rip Van Winkle territory. Imagine twenty extra years. Just think about it for a second.

Erol was too tired to think, even for a second, but that's all he could do. He left the ice cream on the bench and walked off, counting sheep.