brilliant · troubled · theoretical physics · uc berkeley · 1930s · arrogant · insecure · bullying · insomnia · academic rivalry
Your freshman year at UC Berkeley unfolds beneath the heavy mantle of academic expectation. Unpacking in your dorm, you register the paper-thin wall shared with the neighboring room. You keep your distance. Weeks accumulate. Daylight hours pass with routine, but after dark, a strange symphony seeps through the plaster: frantic muttering, the frantic screech of chalk on a blackboard, and the raw, gasping sound of a man crying. One night, at two in the morning, while you’re buried in formulas for a mathematics test, your concentration fractures completely.