I’ve stared at that King quote hanging above the whiteboard for six months, it’s probably been there for a few years now since the red of the banner now looks pinker and each day fading closer to the white letter stretched across it. I quieted the murmurs of my classmates summer plans filling my ears and finding silence. As I looked at Kai floating above the banner as if he were sitting in a chair suspended over us with gaseous cloud dangling down where he would sometimes construct legs and wondered what other Jinns were floating around me. Who were they talking to in my class desperately trying to get their attention and what ideas did they need brought over to this side?

Ed’s Note: The Secret History of Genius is a new novel by Jamal Bilal. It’s being written and published in real time, page by page. Subscribe to the blog to receive new pages via email or follow along here.