The building could only be described as fetid. The mephitic atmosphere punched you in the face when you walked in the door. Years of sweat, stale cigarette smoke, and an overtone of patchouli oil from thousands of college kids with questionable hygiene and an exuberance for body spray had left their stench. It had more funk than James Brown and the assault on the nose was as much a part of the local legend of the place as the music that shook it to its foundations every weekend. Welcome to the famous, and now former, Rocketstar Cafe.

A short story about just how much young and enthusiastic love and hurt.

My asshole did a fantastic impersonation of a rabbit’s nose…and that’s when the world exploded.

Flirting is a delicate dance that requires a deep understanding of subtle nuance. It requires the reading and interpretation of thousands of slight social cues and microexpressions. You have to apply a small stimulus, wait for the tiniest of responses, be socially and emotionally aware enough to detect when that happens, gauge the results, and input the next stimulus. This feedback loop repeats thousands of times (often several times a minute) for anywhere from hours to months. In the unlikely event that you successfully navigate the feminine psyche algorithm, you get laid.

It all begins with an idea.