`Using the fax machine?’ Fiona said, sounding bewildered.

`Not that,’ Luci snapped. `You’re all at it, trying to steal my thoughts from my head. You’re trying to capitalise on my genius. But it won’t work. I’ve copyrighted my thoughts. If you try to use them, you’ll be arrested.’

`What?’ Fiona stared at Luci.

`Don’t come the innocent with me,’ Luci retorted. `I know.’ The rage rose up so suddenly, it left her gasping. She pounded her fists against the wall, throwing Fiona off when she tried to stop her. `You can’t have my thoughts. I haven’t finished with them. Not nearly. They’re like shooting stars and I have to gather them in.’

`Luci, stop it. You’re hurting yourself,’ Fiona protested.

`Fuck off,’ Luci spat, shoving her aside and storming out of the office. In her sanctuary in the deeds room, she paced furiously, the restless anger almost unbearable. She couldn’t keep hold of her thoughts anymore; it was starting to feel a bit too intense. Like she couldn’t control her own mind anymore. She tried deep breathing and progressive relaxation, but her brain was on fire, impossible to stop.

Luci stayed in the deeds room all day, the door locked from the inside. She felt as though if she went back up into the office, she’d lose everything in her mind, and she couldn’t risk that. She felt that she had so much to offer the world, if only she could decode her own thoughts.

She didn’t sleep at all again that night; she went out running at 3am because she just couldn’t stay in the flat. She found herself alternating, at an alarming speed, between laughter and tears. By the time it came to going to work, though, she’d settled at laughter and felt wonderfully energised and alive.

***

`Luci, you couldn’t give the house-plants in the board room and meeting rooms some Baby Bio, could you?’ Katrina, the only female partner in the firm, asked mid-morning. Luci was in the middle of folding a pile of papers, which had been left for her to shred, into origami animals.

She nodded distractedly. `Yeah, sure. When I’ve finished my zoo.’

There were at least two dozen house-plants spread throughout the office suite. Luci dutifully filled a jug with Baby Bio solution, but when she got into the board room, she started to giggle helplessly. Almost doubled over with laughter, she poured the Baby Bio out onto the floor and started flinging open the windows.

One by one, Luci picked up the house-plants and tossed them out of the window. As they tumbled towards the pavement, two storeys below, she leaned out and waved to them.

`Baby, bye-o,’ she chuckled. It was like the homophone had lodged in her head; she couldn’t stop laughing at the genius of it.

She progressed through the office suite, so that down on the ground, it was raining cyclamen and geraniums, much to the surprise of people walking by. Luci was singing, `Baby, bye-o,’ at the top of her voice, finding it all hilariously funny.

`What the hell are you doing?’

Luci turned round, with the last plant in her hands, to discover the she had an audience of bewildered secretaries.

`Baby, bye-o,’ she spluttered. `Wave to baby, and say bye-o. Get it? Baby bye-o. Baby Bio.’ To demonstrate, Luci tossed the plant out of the open window of the meeting room.

`Bloody hell,’ Sally gasped. `She’s totally off her head.’

`I am not off my head,’ Luci retorted. `It’s not my fault you all had your sense of humours removed the same time as your brains.’

`Are you on drugs?’ Sally demanded.

Luci threw back her head and laughed. `I don’t need drugs, I’m high on life, and low on gas… That’s a song, have you heard it? Probably not, you only like slushy boy-bands, don’t you?’

`Keep her talking while I go and fetch Katrina, Sal,’ Fiona said in a stage whisper.

`I heard that, I’m not deaf,’ Luci snapped. `I’m not talking to her. She’s got the brain power of a retarded goldfish.’ Turning her back on her audience, she climbed onto the window sill and sat with her legs dangling over the edge, as if she was preparing to jump.

`Get down from there, Luci!’ Katrina exclaimed, striding across the room to take hold of Luci’s arm. `What on earth are you doing?’

Luci laughed. `I’m not on earth,’ she replied, beaming. `My brain is orbiting out in space.’

`Come on out of the window,’ Katrina pleaded. `It’s not safe.’

`It’s all right, I can fly,’ Luci reassured her, but when Katrina didn’t let go of her arm, Luci sighed in resignation and climbed back into the room.

`Go and get yourself a coffee, Luci and try and calm down,’ Katrina said. `Perhaps Fiona or Sally could sit with you for a while?’

`If I sit with them, they’ll cause my brain to degenerate,’ Luci said seriously. `I’m not sure I should have coffee anyway. If my mind goes any faster, it might take off.’

Katrina sighed, glancing at her watch. `I have a client to see,’ she said. `But as soon as I’m finished, I’ll come and have a chat with you, all right? Don’t worry about doing anything. I think you need to take some time out, don’t you?’

Luci shrugged. Katrina left, leaving Fiona and Sally watching Luci as if she was an unexploded bomb waiting to be disarmed.

`I don’t need babysitting,’ Luci snapped. `You can go.’

`What’s wrong, Luci?’ Fiona asked worriedly.

`I’m fine, it’s the rest of the world that has a problem,’ Luci retorted, but in truth, she wished she could take control of her mind again. Random lyrics were spinning through her head, along with snatches of dialogue from her favourite films, with them the vague sense that she should be writing them down because they contained the key to something. Ideas flashed through her brain like rockets, every one more brilliant than the last, but all of them incomprehensible in the chaos. Luci glowered at Fiona and Sally until they wisely retreated and left her alone.

Luci felt possessed by a strange kind of anger tinged with fear; her brain felt like the scene of a motorway pile-up. She paced the office, clenching and unclenching her fists, them launched herself at the closed door, kicking and punching it frantically, but even that wasn’t enough. Nothing was enough. Nothing could ever be enough. She jumped up onto the window ledge, ready to jump, but from on the street below, a car stereo was blaring out Elvis Presley’s If I Can Dream, a sign if ever there was one. She slumped back into the office, crouching on the floor with her head clutched in her hands.