I slip into the park on the way back from the post office and stop and sit. I’m carrying nothing with me. I would usually have a book, a notebook, Treo, a camera, the Stranger or the Weekly, or a cup of tea or hot chocolate: a prop to distract me from myself.. The park is filled with people with props: dogs on leashes, juggling pins, an R/C plane. No hula hoops today, not yet anyway. I finish, well nothing, and walk back to the apartment. Kelsey drives past in a pickup. I ran into him a few minutes ago, on foot going the other way. He’s staring straight ahead at the road, his lower jaw working away at a piece of gum. By the time I step out of the park, the model plane is stuck high up in a tree.