Abbott Coburn had spent much of his twenty-six years in a state of uncontrolled, frantic paralysis. So it was appropriate that in the moments before chaos was unleashed on the Sokolov estate, he was furiously imagining a dozen possible courses of action while his body remained perfectly still.

I’m Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom, Jason Pargin, St. Martin’s Press, Ch. Day 5, p. 354, 2024