The most important part of the story, for me, is the concluding section where Schyan and “the other woman,” Varabhata, sit down for a chat. When a relationship ends, there’s always two sides, two injured parties, to tell their stories. “Love and Marriage” grew out of an anxiety about this: How do you know that, in the other person’s eyes, you weren’t the bad guy? That your self-absorbedness hid the consequences of your actions for someone you loved?

This is that splendid thing, the story that arrives as a dream. I woke up in the middle of the night reeling from the image from a man skateboarding down a mountainside with an avalanche of boulders chasing after him, only to be paced by a rickety dented robot bearing a birthday card to whom he would snarl, “Fuck off.” I woke having absolutely no idea how this situation would come about, and everything else was reverse engineering.

The serial becomer comes from this phenomenon that I’ve heard called “relationship chameleoning.” It’s the practice of changing yourself to accommodate a romantic partner, then doing it again for the next partner, then the next. Adopting their interests, friend groups, mannerisms, etc. until you forget you ever had your own. Nora is that to the extreme. This story is, in part, about the dangers of that kind of shapeshifting.

To be honest, I can’t remember how it started, but at some point I came across The Jazz of Physics author Stephon Alexander. Listening to him play and analyze John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps” gave me a map for this story. From there, I could record the odyssey of Dr. Charlene Jenkins and explore what it means to take risks and break free (or not) from the structures we’re born into.

About a year ago I was having lunch with a friend and journalist who mentioned that trucking was one of the largest employers of non-college-educated white men in America. A little while later, he made a completely unrelated comment about the best cures for terrorism being employment and purpose, while its most effective instigators are idleness and injustice. About half of “The Gamecocks” came together walking away from that lunch. The other half was borrowed and embellished from stories I heard from an uncle of mine in North Carolina.