0.

A friend of mine who was teaching a group of young kids with horrific home lives told me this: one day she started telling them a nonsense story -- the sky is green, cows are driving cars -- and there was no response from them. She realized with a sickened feeling that for them, everything was equally likely. I think she started to wonder if that was hell.

I've been thinking about how events are essentially chaotic, which is different than everything being equally likely -- but it's that difference that I can't immediately explain.

Because it's there, because it's like a loose tooth (who first used that as a simile for making stuff up? it's pretty good), I am starting with this fistful of gum wrappers and pieces of string and mints: the woods, a trio, and their cross-ambitions. Et les flics.