Sixteen strands of hair, lined up end to end, away from South Baltimore, a yen for baseball rises up in a busload of early morning commuters. The bus pulls over, and somewhat miraculously, the driver produces a rubber ball and a long stick. They are ready, these people, to play a primitive game, a simple game. But as they begin to choose sides, arguments erupt. They have, each individually, judged each other's physical ability, categorized each other. It gets pretty bloody. You probably heard about it.

In Des Moines, Lois scratches her cheek mid-thought, wondering whether the weather in Chicago is something she could handle; not really realizing (she's young, she gets a free pass) the parts of climate people generally out of a laziness more social than anything, call weather isn't really that--and certainly, definitely, and quietly but oddly enough, refutably, doesn't come with handles, or a cheek to scratch.

Blue removes, only, from a small town in Ohio, a smaller town began to grow.

Zero removes from the left hand, but at least two or three inches, from the quiet center of a coffee shop, Town Unknown, New Zealand, a very large fly doesn't land, though it could. Any minute...

Three removes from the corner of Grant and Villejo, someone named Brodsky, gender unknown, returns like an echo, like fingertips, the tail of a lizard, the lilac skirt . . . behold: the perfect ear.

Four removes from Utopia Parkway, a lazy strand of helium kills Charlie Gusslewump's 6th birthday party, kills it dead, the kids cannot even throw a ball for weeks after that, the ball store closes, you get the idea.

Three removes from Utopia Parkway, a boy in a red overcoat, not smiling, never, holds a digital camera in memory of nobody's specific Woody Guthrie.