I had sex with Billy Gervais last night. I have a Spanish quiz this afternoon. The future imperfect contains the whole, plus a suffix, the latter accentuated sufficiently to hold one's attention to its closing syllable. I practice conjugating the future imperfect as I walk across campus and into the library. Bailaré, bailarás, bailará, bailaremos, bailaréis, bailarán. There will be a quiz on these forms later today: how to make verbs ending in —ar, —er, and —ir into events that I hope will happen in the future. Futuro; this half of their title is indicative enough. Future means that something will come. But the imperfection of these verbs, this makes me confused while walking up the stairs. I check my phone. Billy has not called. I push against the glassed door and into the library. I find a dictionary at its appointed podium and spirit it away. It travels between my hip and my bookbag, heavy as I cross the reading room and down the stairs, through the stacks. Thud onto my study carrel. Imp imp imp. Flexed thumb flips towards these pages while still standing; as they near I ease into my seat.

imperative —adj. 1. having the nature of, or indicating power or authority; commanding [an imperative gesture] 2. absolutely necessary; urgent; compelling [it is imperative that I go] 3. Gram. designating or of the mood of a verb that expresses a command, strong request, or exhortation.

That was last week's lesson. Commands. Commanding. Do this. Come here. Go away. Fuck me. I find imperfect two inches down the column. It is imperceptible between the two.

imperfect —adj. 1. not finished or complete, lacking something. 2. not perfect, having a defect, fault, or error. 3. Gram. in certain inflected languages designating or of the tense of verb that indicates a past action or state as uncompleted, continuous, customary, or going on at the same time as another: "was writing" and "used to write" are English forms corresponding to the imperfect tense in such languages.

The fourth definition pertains to a particular musical interval. I move on.

imperfect flower —n. unisex flower with only stamens or pistils.

imperfect fungus—n. any of a subdivision (Deuteromycotina) of fungi for which no sexual stage of reproduction is known.

Imperfection followed, then imperfective, which seemed to be the Russian equivalent to my Spanish imperfect.

imperforate —adj. 1. having no holes or openings, unpierced. 2. having a straight edge without perforations: said of a postage stamp, etc. I wonder about the colon in this definition 3. Anat. lacking the normal opening.

I imagine a man with ears coated solid with skin, a singular lip fusing top and bottom, mandible to maxilla. Hannibal Lecter flits into my head, then human biology. I studied the latter last year, and find myself more pleased to recall the Latinate terms for the lower half of ones face than terrified by Anthony Hopkins.

imperial —adj. In addition to the standards regarding country over colonies, etc., the fifth definition of imperial is a) majestic; august or b) imperious, which, in turn, is: 1. overbearing, arrogant, domineering, etc or 2. urgent, imperative.

After this, imperial slips into idiosyncrasies of the nineteenth century: the roof or top of a coach, or a luggage case carried thereon, an article of great size or superior quality; a particular size of writing paper measuring 23 by 31 inches, one which is slightly smaller, at 22 by 30, in the British Isles. I wonder whether the parenthetically noted possibility of 32 inches in England's length is a variance or an uncertainty on the part of the volume's editor. Dictionaries are supposed to be infallible, perfect. I land upon to the adjective's final entry: double bracket, after the Emperor Louis Napoleon, who set this fashion, close double bracket, colon, a pointed tuft of beard on the lower lip and chin.

I close the dictionary. Would a larger edition, perhaps even venturing so far as unabridged, include a larger assortment of intervening words between the imperative, the imperfect and Napoleon's beard? I find my way back to the I's. Imp imp imp. There lies the expected Latinate root, but wait, there's more. Imp, translated from the Greek emphyteyein.

imp —n. 1. a) a shoot or graft b) a child; off-spring 2. A devil's offspring, young demon.

In this tense, in today's quiz, I am looking evil in the face. I consider this foreboding until I realize I have an imperial (Latinate, not Greek) need for the lavatory. The church bells are tolling five, and demonic or not, I repeat the conjugation of the future imperfect until I reach the restroom's swinging door. Cantaré, cantarás, cantará, cantaremos, cantaréis, cantarán. Baileremos y cantaremos. We will dance and sing for an unspecified amount of time in the future. Or do I mean that I hope there will be dancing and singing at some point in the future? I skipped class on the day of the tense's introduction. I turn the corner, and shoulder into the swinging door….

Look for the full text of "Autobiography in the Future Imperfect" in our debut issue.