The day after his brother left the house for good, Marty Hanson picked out the smallest boy in his sixth grade class and waited until the boy was alone. He approached him, telling him that he’d found a dead dog decomposing in a far corner of the school’s courtyard. The boy, who was new at the school and whose name Marty could not remember, stuffed his hands deep into his pockets, nearly to the elbows, and said, “So?” He was looking at a dandelion near his sneaker’s toe.

You wouldn’t think this would be so hard since you spend so much of the day home alone talking to yourself.

That’s true. I, we rather, have had plenty of practice.

So on with it then. What’s new?

The cereal kick I suppose, but you already knew that. I’m going on like three months of this bizarre cereal kick. In fact…I’ll be back in five…