Me. Two presentations back to back. Projector. Darkened room. Standing by the screen. Hands moving. Mouth moving. Lots of pointing to objects on the screen with my blue PaperMate pen, the pocket clip lined up obsessively with the white letters on the barrel.

Talking to the person controlling the mouse and keyboard for me. If we could move back to the... that's it... yes, no, forward one. Perfect.

Relaxing a bit. Saliva returning to mouth. Stammer surprisingly under control. I begin to see that every other word is ejected from my mouth with a tiny fleck of spit that, like a meteor, flashes briefly in and out of existence within the cone of projector light.

My mind briefly drifts to an image of me doing my presentation while wearing a plastic neck cone like what veterinarians put on dogs. I feel pity for the people sitting within spit range. A smattering of applause. I leave.