Oliver attempts to order his body to stop delivering sensory inputs from his ankles.

What kind of sensory input do you generally receive from your ankles, that you could now stop? Hmph.

Well, anyway, no more sensory input from your ankles. Do you even notice?

Oliver is among the ranks of people who have many times wished, maybe not in exactly those terms, to be simulated at a level of detail that does not include ankles.

"I'll be darned like a pair of worn-out socks, that actually worked."

Glad to be of service.

"What did you try?"

"I tried existing at a level of detail that doesn't include ankles and now I don't have to worry about the state of my ankles at all!"

"Did you previously spend a lot of time worrying about your ankles?"

"You have absolutely no fucking idea.  Imagine a world where you could try to run, and then suddenly your body twists around and you are writhing on the ground because your left foot does not work anymore and there is PAIN and you are worried that you have actually PERMANENTLY fucked up your left foot and then you HAVE and that is the end of your experience with recreational running.  I recommend not having ankles unless there is specifically a reason why having ankles for you is better than not having them right at that second."

"That sounds awful! I can't decide which world is worse, your original world or mine when I wasn't awake yet!"

"I will make a note to continue not having ankles."

"What do you recommend actually paying attention to, body-wise?"

"That's an excellent question that I haven't considered before!  I think in your case you should try paying attention to particular pieces of your body one at a time, decide which piece is the most fun right now, and then switch that one on so you can get used to existing in a little more detail than before.  Once you're used to it you can switch the next most fun piece on.  If you're kissing you probably want to activate your mouth and we can maybe experiment later with activating lots more things at once."

"I am probably going to ask what I want to get rid of, not what I'll keep.  I'll keep the air going through my lungs and the sense of wind on my face and enough of my skin that it makes me feel like I know where I am in the world.  And not keep my intestines, unless I get rid of them and realize afterwards that there was anything good that ever happened to me as a result of having intestines.  But really I'm just thinking about this for the first time too.  I used to get everything and have no choice about it."

"That sounds reasonable... though if I only turned on my mouth for the kiss I would have missed what you were doing with your arms!"

Now that Emily is no longer drowning in sensory input she doesn't know how to process, she realizes she actually really liked the kiss a lot.

"We'll have to mess around and see how it all works!  I also wouldn't want you to miss what I was doing with my arms on account of you suddenly paying attention individually to all of your toes."

Emily wonders if there's anything interesting to be done with toes but is definitely not ready to broach that subject.

"Do you want to keep going and see if Mayor Lewis is at Robin's?"

"If it works for you!  Actually, hold on, let me see what happens if I try having my body exist in much less detail, I'm really curious but if something goes wrong there you might have to yell at me to start existing again or something..."

...Does this seem to affect his internal state of mind?

Well it doesn't seem to, but what are you using to do that evaluation?

Okay, well in retrospect did that seem to have affected his state of mind?

You were probably a little less clever, yes. Hard to measure, though.

"...huh.  I'm not sure and your own mileage might vary, but I think my mind actually did get simpler when I made my general existence a lot simpler.  There might be some reason for you to learn how to maintain at least the fun parts of having a detailed body."

"Hmmm. Well, I'm going to have to work up to it, because I definitely did not feel smarter when I was noticing my whole body!"

"Very reasonable!  It would definitely be distracting and mind-filling the first time around!  But imagine that your mind expands to a generally greater level of detail and can handle that and then it turns aside from there and considers a complicated question instead... or maybe it's more metaphysical than that, simple detail and complex detail.  I don't actually know.  Really I know a lot less than I'm used to knowing about the nature of existence right now, I'm accustomed to walking around knowing that I have ankles and knowing that I'm just stuck with them!"

"My mind has expanded considerably since yesterday at this time and I hope it doesn't pop."

"If you just keep going at the same speed and don't pop that sounds like one good way to end up as a god!  Please be nice to everyone if that happens, you seem like a generally nice person but I'm saying it anyways."

"I am really not sure what to do with all of this casual talk of you being a god or me being a god!"