he often did, because he found the words hypnotically soothing and distracting, he recited the elements of the periodic table in his head, in order of atomic number: Hydrogen, helium, lithium, beryllium, boron, carbon, nitrogen . . . By the time he reached number thirty-seven on the third round—the often overlooked, but actually quite interesting, rubidium—his thoughts had stilled, his breathing calmed, and his heart stopped pounding.
