On a roaming evening in a town called Twelve, the houses were all of glass. One could see, as one passed, the cold and the warm hearths, the worshippings, the pointing fingers. The quick caresses or the coldness of turned backs and folded arms.

The street of shops was all dull metal, windowless with risings of sooty smoke . I heard the hiss of pavement rain, and stopped for a slowly train. On a lime-lit billboard in a field of wild rice, broad brush strokes said SEVEN, a devil’s tail pointing straight ahead.