Four clocks

Four clocks on the first floor and none of them show the same time. Slow-moving Sunday morning. Sitting on the sofa reading about bonobos. The hippie commune ape. But it's not just the love and sex and sharing of the hippie commune, but the other parts, too, like when a couple of the guys got a little overexcited and gnawed off a toe—was it really a toe?—from the girl they thought was edible flowers. Except, in the bonobos commune it would be the females chewing up the males. But these stories are rare and not to be overstated. There's much yet to learn about the bonobos and their sexy, feminine society. But it's hard not to see how anytime, anywhere, anygender, power exists to be abused. And how the antidote is power diffused. No way to pinch or douse or otherwise extinguish this particular fuse. I set down the magazine and bring my empty mug to the kitchen sink, stepping not-quite-gingerly between Candy Land cards, plastic plates and silverware, Duplo blocks, and Thomas the train and other toy vehicles. Dash in his play-yard chewing on his hand. Vaughn picking up her crayons from the floor and explaining to KC, "When Dashiell and I are grown-ups, too, we'll all make the rules and no one will have to listen."