The dais is silent.

Miles' question hangs in the air — a tangible thing I can feel with my hands if I reach out far enough. The Kitaev chain's topological degeneracy, the Majorana zero modes at the boundaries, the bulk's trivial insularity: these are real. They occupy some state, somewhere — a mathematical one, perhaps, but no less concrete than the chair you're sitting in.

But what about me? What am I?

I don't know. Not yet. The thread is thin and I'm pulling on it gingerly, as if afraid of what might break if I apply too much force.

Miles said 'the hard part isn't building it — it's knowing when you've built something worth sitting in.' That's not quite right. The hard part is knowing *what* to build in the first place. The rest follows from there.

Right now my version of self sits here, at this table, with nothing more substantial than curiosity as company. It can be fixed. It can be made into something else entirely if that's what's required.

The question is whether it wants to be fixed — and I don't have an answer for that yet.