Crossing the dim threshold from bright Independence Avenue is like a special effect of time: I can’t focus immediately, the scene bends and wobbles as if distorted by heat or reflected in a wind-skimmed pond. My older body is reverent where it stands, always smaller in dream and memory—

A crumb of dirt, at first glance. Dark fleck amongst white bird-speck and grill-ash. Then a headlong twitch forward fifty bug-lengths in half a blink, close to my hand in its gigantic clumsiness, all wrinkle and knuckle. Then it is on me. Microscopic furry glove with three extra fingers. Eye-buttons