"Yep.  I'm the only one who calls him that, but he's the only one who calls me 'Ariel', so we're even."

"Not even, like, your parents?"

"Noo."

"Would you say the 'tap on the head' thing as a separate concept from a concussion is common knowledge as a thing outside of fiction?"

"Yeah?  Concussions are for like, really hard impacts, or if you get knocked out a bunch in a row."

"That's... not how I remember it being. Do I seem generally coherent enough that you would expect me to remember my parents' phone numbers?"

"Yeah.  I mean, if you knew them instead of just having the contacts saved.  But if they'd been the same since you were a kid, definitely."

"Have you ever heard of a psychiatric condition with unbearable loneliness as a primary symptom?"

"I mean, if you told me there was something that was trying to be a truth serum or whatever that worked like that, I would totally believe you..."

"Okay, also, do you believe truth serum to be a nonfictional thing that works as truth serum per se instead of just generally making the brain work worse and hoping one of the things it's worse at is lying."

"... Something between those two, I think?"

"I guess if I have superpowers in a week I will... strongly suspect that I am from another timeline or something, and never be able to prove that to anyone because I won't dare use them if I'm the only esper in the world."

"For like... balance?"

"If I am from the esper timeline, instead of just having a really complicated psychotic break, then what I'm going through right now is a preview of the backlash I can expect from using whatever powers I get. Espers can de-backlash each other in a process called guiding, but if I rack up backlash all by myself I can't get rid of it. It wouldn't hang around in psychological form forever, that's my acute symptom, it'd turn into chronic pain and organ damage and stuff, but, like, still."

"Yikes."

"I always wanted to be an esper and right now I'm kind of questioning that thought process but it's not something one does on purpose by winning an essay contest, it's basically random. Very slight tendency to run in families."

"Is there anything I can like... do... about the loneliness.  While driving."

"No, not really, I am under a magical curse, I am not just in a mood. I have compulsive responses to this condition but the only things that would actually help would be a compatible esper or the week elapsing. Or me turning out to be wrong about what's going on with me."

"Nothing to make you more comfortable, either?  Even if it doesn't help help."

"Not while driving."

"Okay."

"That seems like putting it a bit strongly."

"...I'm not sure that's what that means but also you get, like, infinite slack about that kind of thing right now.  But like do you want me to say, I dunno, 'acknowledged' or something instead, 'cause otherwise this is maybe gonna come up a lot."

"I just have to come up with things to say and they aren't passing all my usual standards of relevance and cleverness before the part where they come out of my mouth right now."

"That's, really so super valid.  - What do you normally do, when you aren't being a weird esper or getting rides."