Jamie, hospice manager.

Jamie stepped into his kitchen, and felt the world lurch sideways.

He had left work a little early. It was his anniversary weekend and he and his wife Ashley were going out for a nice dinner tonight. It was only year seven, but that was longer than his two previous marriages had lasted. People didn't tend to find him pleasant to be around, and it had taken some trial-and-error to find a woman who could not just tolerate but love him. That same woman was due home in 45 minutes.

He dropped the bouquet he had picked up on the kitchen island and grabbed the counter to steady himself. The counter was cold and smooth to the touch.

It was granite. Thick, dark granite. He didn't just know these things, he felt them.

Looking around the kitchen, he was suddenly overwhelmed by the same feeling. The shininess of the fridge, the electricness of the stovetop. The deliciousness of the plums in the fruit bowl. Adjectives, properties, essences - they screamed at Jamie from every direction and he fell to the ground, clutching his head in a silent scream.

He must be going insane. Or having an aneurysm. Jamie lay on the floor whimpering, eyes closed. Even without looking he felt the properties of every thing calling out to him. The thickness of the walls, the whiteness of the cabinets. He heard his own successfulness, marriedness, Jamieness shrieking at his soul. He tore at his hair and wept.

After an incalculable interval, the cacophony died down. He slowly lifted his head and peered around the kitchen. He was still getting the same weird metaphysical signals, but they were more tolerable.

He felt relief, but also an intense anxiety overtake him. Had he been unwittingly dosed with a deliriant?

That's when it hit him. He sensed, among millions of things, soberness in himself. Sanity, too. He couldn't help but let out a bitter laugh; how many mental patients "sensed sanity" in themselves? That's when he realized that these things were "detachable" in some weird, mystical sense.

Jamie must have looked truly mad, standing his kitchen, squinting at nothing while he decided which "property" to "remove" from what.