He had no words to describe what was happening to him. More accurately, he had nothing in his possession from which words could be conjured.

In point of fact, he possessed nothing but himself—though admittedly, his self-definition was a tenuous thing, more a collection of potentials than solid fact.

Still, of his own existence he was firmly convinced. An objective observer’s belief would have been tried, but his own self-assertion was self-validating. It had to be, or it wouldn’t have been.

With no sane perception of time, he nonetheless perceived the start of a certain coalescence. Matter began to clarify, collapse, and concretize in a process akin to petrifaction.

As instants regained meaning, he sensed a window of influence. A genie promised a quick handful of wishes—and he interjected preferences and demands. Distantly remembered anatomy was refined, edited, improved.

He awoke in a body not unlike the one to which he’d been accustomed, though it was certainly not the one into which he’d been born.