people monopolized over the world's resources leaving the vast majority of humans destitute, hopeless, burdened by hard labor for sustenance, and in some cases famished. They chased around like mad men trying to buy up the planet. Some of the mad men did so while repudiating their own mortality. Others acknowledged their mortality and so they told themselves they would gormandize while the feast was on the table. There had to be more than this. She dressed him and herself warmly and when she was outside she realized that she had overdone it. The temperature was already above freezing and the traces of snow were evaporating tracelessly, later to be sucked up into a Heraclitus shaped cloud. The odd weather, which was becoming less odd annually, concerned her especially after the United Nations report that the world temperature would rise two degrees over the next three decades. She knew, however, that there wasn't "a damned thing" she could do about it. She supposed that she might be able to stand in front of Cornell University with placards advocating that human beings go back to being the hunters and gatherers from whence they came. She could stand there like a madwoman denouncing the past 7000-10,000 years. Nothing would come out of it but 12 hours of sitting in a jailhouse and then paying a fine. After waiting over forty minutes for the rare and irregularly timed buses to come by within this small city, she got on a bus with her baby pouched onto her back. A seat near a young man with a plain face who was thumping his foot to the music of his portable radio was the only one left. She took it. She was grateful to have it. Having to balance herself and a baby to the movements of a bus was something she had mastered like a sport but it wasn't a preferable hobby. Adagio liked the bounces but she doubted that he would care to bounce off of a window. After the door of the bus was shut and the vehicle was beginning to roll without any sudden speed it was rapped by a hand. The driver stopped the bus and folded the door again. A woman around 20 years old entered. She smiled and greeted Gabriele with diffident childishness after shouting her name triumphantly to the back of the bus and by a wave of her hand. Then as the vehicle picked up speed her expressions became more diffident and she stumbled to the back of the bus. "What do I do?" she said. "I don't see anywhere to sit." "You'll have to stand," said Gabriele. "What do I do?" "Hold onto the railing," she scoffed. Lily grabbed it and began to dangle there like a leaf on a tree. "I guess you forgot me," she said timidly. "No, you said that you would come in the morning. I thought maybe you had decided against coming." Her expressions were hard. It wasn't her idea to get this Rita/Lily person to come with her but she didn't own the services so she couldn't tell her to not come. "Really, you know, it isn't for everyone, Lily" "Rita," she said.