“What’s wrong with that kid?” I ask him.
“Oh, he’s just trancing,” he replies.
“Trancing?” I ask him.
“Yeah, trancing,” he says, scratching his nose. “Trancing is an effect that is caused by, how should I put it, well, all rhythms. You see, everyone alive is always tranced, and none of them actually know it. You know why babies can’t sleep?”
“No.” This kid obviously knows too much about this. He’s going to talk longer than I want to listen.
“Because they haven’t started their trance yet. You see, the heart makes a rhythm, which I am sure you are familiar with. You hardly ever notice it during the day. But when you start to run or your heart stops making its regular noise, you notice again, right?”
“Right.”
“It’s because infants are not used to their hearts yet; they have to hear it beat in their ears for months before they can sleep easy. But for those first couple of months, they are more alive than they could ever hope to be. It’s like they have this pest living inside them, crawling in place, making a repetitive nuisance that just won’t quit. But once they’ve lived with it enough, they forget that there’s a seven-pound hunk of muscle pumping liters of blood each day, keeping them alive. That’s obviously not the only kind of trancing that you can experience; when the Incans sent their messengers through the mountains chewing on coca leaves, they became tranced by their own footsteps. You see, the cocaine in the leaves made their brains more vulnerable, and their long runs could last for days on end, and so, they’d actually stop trancing on their heartbeats and start trancing on the pounding from their feet. After their journey, they’d of course have to start trancing to their hearts again, which made them bedridden for days. But nowadays, with portable music players and awfully repetitive music, you can make your own trance real quick. All you have to do is pick a song that is the same thing over and over and over again. Not just the same thing over and over again; it has to be real simple. Something like a drumbeat or some other rhythmic repetition.”
“Interesting.”
“Well you’d be surprised. You see, that after-effect, once you aren’t used to your heart anymore, can be really useful. It can keep you awake forever, and because you aren’t a baby anymore, you don’t have to cry.”
“And I assume you’ve done this before.”
“Yeah, and that kid over there is doing it right now. He’s been listening to the same three-second loop for three days. Even when he tries to sleep. He’s just a little tired is all. Once he’s tranced into that, he’ll sleep straight through the weekend. Monday, he’ll take out the earphones and hear his heart again for the first time in what will seem like months. He’ll be awake for that entire week; he’ll know what it is, but his body will be in a constant panic and will thwart away all fatigue.”
“Thanks,” I tell him. “I’m sure that will come in handy someday.”
“‘Someday’ is not a day of the week,” he says, attempting to wink, but failing miserably.