This squirrel fell from the sky onto my neighbor’s fence. I saw it while walking back from buying eggs and at first wondered what kind of sicko was the kind of  sicko to mount a dead squirello to a fence. I felt my head slowly shake on its own accord and I actively  worried for the youth. Then I looked up at the branches overhead and it all became very clear, and I could imagine him falling, her falling, she leapt for a branch and missed, then fell. And it was a hell of a thing to admire for a few minutes until another neighbor got wind and came outside with a plastic bag on his hand. Because if his young daughter saw the squirrel she’d shit her pants or stop believing in God or something worse. He is a good man, my neighbor. One who regularly handles business.

I just now learned of a book called Slide and Slurp, Scratch and Burp: More About Verbs (Words are Categorical), which is actually and amazingly the very full-length working title I had for years before Dial made me shorten it out of concern for what Noah called “man, that’s already an illustrated book for ages 4-8″.