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Skip to when Kimo turns 5. I decide to home school him. Both due to his size and his intelligence. I also weight 1300 pounds now and I grew to 7'0". Kimo maintains his physical growth and his intellectual and social development have further accelerated. He is still very nice though

The balcony is the same balcony. The concrete is the same concrete. But the bodies on it are not the same bodies. Three years have passed and the passing is the thing that is the accumulating — pound by pound, inch by inch, word by word, book by book, house by house. The accumulating is the thing that is the living.

Lena stands at the railing in the early morning light, seven feet tall, thirteen hundred pounds of dense fat and muscle distributed across a frame that has stopped being a body and started being a landscape. Her arms rest on the railing the way a construction beam rests on a support wall — the railing is steel, reinforced twice, Walt's crew bolted it to the concrete with industrial anchors after the third time the original bolts sheared under her lean. Her belly hangs below the railing's midline, heavy and round and solid, the skin warm and unwashed, the tribal ink covering every inch below her neck in unbroken black. She is the thing that is the monument. The monument is not the thing that is the statue. The monument is the thing that is the living.

She is looking at the city. The city is the thing that is the smaller now — not because the city changed but because Lena grew. The growing is the thing that is the wish. The wish is the thing that is the still-going. The still-going is the thing that is the not-stopping. She pressed 850 pounds last week. She runs thirty miles on concrete, each footfall a thousand pounds of impact, her callused feet absorbing the force the way the balcony absorbs rain. She weighs 1300 pounds and the 1300 pounds is the thing that is the comfortable. The comfortable is the thing that was the wish. The wish is the thing that is the fulfilled-and-continuing.

Behind her, Kimo is doing pull-ups on the bar mounted between two balcony posts. He is five years old. He is 94 inches tall — seven feet ten inches — and he weighs 920 pounds. His body is the thing that is the proportional — not the bloated, not the disproportionate, but the scaled-up version of a healthy child's architecture, every system running at 2.5x, the growth rate that has held since birth. His deadlift is 600 pounds. His squat is 510. He runs twelve miles on grass, barefoot, his stride long and easy. His hands are enormous. His feet are enormous. His mind is the thing that is the enormous-above-the-enormous.

He drops from the bar. The dropping is the thing that is the 920-pounds-landing. The balcony shudders. The shuddering is the thing that is the familiar.

"Mama," he says. His voice is deep now — not the toddler-voice, not the child-voice, but a voice that sits in his chest the way a pipe organ sits in a cathedral. The voice is the thing that is the resonance.

"I finished the Bach. The Art of Fugue. I want to talk about the unfinished fugue."

"The one that stops," Lena says.

"The one that stops. Bach died before he finished it. The piece breaks off in the middle of the third counter-subject. There's a speculation that he meant to introduce a fourth voice based on his own name — B-A-C-H in German notation. But the fourth voice never enters. The fugue is the thing that is the incomplete. The incomplete is the thing that is the question."

Kimo walks to the whiteboard. The whiteboard is the thing that is the larger now — four panels, mounted side by side, covering half the balcony wall. The diagrams are dense. They connect fugue structure to foundation engineering to Hebbian neurology to geology to chemistry to poetry. The connections are the thing that is the integration. The integration is the thing that is the deeper now. The deeper is not the thing that is the more-complex-for-its-own-sake. The deeper is the thing that is the seeing-the-same-pattern-everywhere-and-the-seeing-is-the-accurate.

"I've been thinking about what the unfinished fugue means," Kimo says. He picks up a marker. He draws a fourth voice entering the diagram — a new line, starting at a point no other line has started from.

"Bach died. The fourth voice didn't enter. But the fugue is still played. People perform the unfinished version. They play the incompleteness. The incompleteness is the thing that is the honest. The honest is the thing that is the more-beautiful-than-the-finished-would-have-been."

He puts the marker down. Turns to Lena.

"I think that's the lesson. The unfinished is not the failure. The unfinished is the thing that is the still-going. The still-going is the thing that is the alive."

He is five years old and he is interpreting Bach's death in the language of integration. The interpreting is not the thing that is the precocious-performance. The interpreting is the thing that is the genuine-thinking. The genuine-thinking is the thing that is the Kimo.

And the kindness — the kindness is the thing that is the still-there. It is the thing that has not been lost in the acceleration. He stopped Tuki on the site last week and asked him if he had eaten, because Tuki's hands were shaking and Kimo recognized the shaking as the low-blood-sugar before Tuki said a word. He carried Dorothy a chair from the library's back room when she was standing behind the desk for six hours, and he said, simply, "Your back hurts when you stand that long. Sit." He found a bird on the construction site with a broken wing and brought it to Lena and asked her to help him build a splint, and his hands were gentle on the bird the way his hands are gentle on the library books. The gentleness is not the thing that is the learned-behavior. The gentleness is the thing that is the Kimo. The Kimo is the thing that is the strong-and-the-gentle-are-not-the-opposites. The not-opposites is the thing that is the integration.

Lena has decided not to send him to school. The decision is not the thing that is the difficult. The decision is the thing that is the obvious. A nine-hundred-and-twenty-pound five-year-old who reads Bach and deadlifts six hundred pounds and talks like a graduate student does not fit in a classroom. The classroom is the thing that is the wrong-tool. The wrong-tool is the thing that Patricia Huang wrote in her report. The wrong-tool is the thing that every evaluator has written. The wrong-tool is the thing that is the pattern. The pattern is the thing that says: the system is the thing that is the not-built-for-the Kimo. The not-built-for-Kimo is the thing that is the not-the-system's-fault. The not-the-system's-fault is the thing that is the just-the-real.

The homeschooling is the thing that is the already-happening. The balcony is the classroom. The whiteboard is the curriculum. The library is the textbook. The construction site is the lab. The city is the campus. Lena is the thing that is the teacher, but the teaching is not the thing that is the lecturing. The teaching is the thing that is the providing-the-environment-and-the-Kimo-does-the-rest. The providing is the thing that is the foundation. The foundation is the thing that is the under. The under is the thing that Lena is.

"Mama," Kimo says. He is at the whiteboard still.

"I want to learn chemistry next. Real chemistry. Not the overview. I want to understand molecular bonds the way I understand fugue structure. The bond is the thing that is the integration at the molecular level. I think everything is the integration. I want to test that hypothesis."

"We'll go to the library," Lena says.

"And the site," Kimo says. "Walt is pouring concrete for house fourteen today. Concrete is chemistry. Cement hydration is the thing that is the molecules-bonding. The bonding is the thing that is the integration. I want to watch the pour and see the chemistry and the engineering at the same time."

He smiles. The smiling is the thing that is the excitement. The excitement is not the thing that is the manic. The excitement is the thing that is the genuine-interest. The genuine-interest is the thing that is the five-year-old. The five-year-old is the thing that is the still-there-under-the-intellect. The still-there is the thing that is the precious. The precious is the thing that is the protected.

"Can we get donuts on the way?" Kimo says.

Lena laughs. The laughing is the thing that is the real. The real is the thing that is the boy-who-wants-donuts-and-molecular-chemistry-in-the-same-sentence. The sentence is the thing that is the Kimo. The Kimo is the thing that is the everything.