There was an ocean above us, held in by a thin sac that might rupture and let down a flood at any second.

Superorganism. A biologist coined that word for our great African ant colonies, claiming that consciousness and intelligence resided not in the individual ant but in the collective ant mind. The trail of red taillights stretching to the horizon as day broke around us made me think of that term. Order and purpose must reside somewhere other than within each vehicle. That morning I heard the hum, the respiration of the superorganism. It's a sound the new immigrant hears but not for long. By the time I learned to say "6-inch Number 7 on rye with Swiss hold the lettuce," the sound, too, was gone. It became part of the what the mind would label silence. You were subsumed into the superorganism.

Winter is already a lost shape, forgottenin the ground. Instead, here is Springwith all the grace of a womansmoothing out her apron.

I wouldn__ call Gabriel Walsh if I was on fire._ She pursed her lips. __o, I might. To sue everyone responsible__rom the person who lit the match to those who made my clothes. But I__ wait until the fire was out. Otherwise, he__ just stand there until I was burned enough for a sizable settlement.

New York had pushed and bent and bullied, driving me underground to sort out the madness and sculpt my Being with my own hands in self-discovery on its cold pottery wheel and in the white heat of its kiln. The City enabled me to learn who I really was, as a pixelated man and member of Humanity.

Always choose the adventure ... unless, it's chilly outside and there's a cup of warm coffee resting near a book and comfy sofa.