Eyes, downcast with the kind of stare that comes with habituated despair, caught wind of movement in the air and fluttered up. A tiny scrap of paper was floating down in front of them, weightlessly shuddering through invisible currents toward the inevitable ground below. The eyes watched it land gently a few feet away. The owner of the eyes observed a listless moment of curiosity, punctuated by a sigh that unfolded one pocketed hand. Moving of its own accord through the molten glass of dreamtime, the hand reached the scrap of paper and flattened it out. The eyes scanned small words. The cloud cover of a scowl was dissolved and metabolized by a series of rapid blinks. Words filed into neural patterns, stretching into the expanse of sky available to correlating pupils. The paper was pocketed, but not the hand. Movement came, light and thoughtful. To the hidden observer, transformation was clear and irrevocable. Something invisible had changed. The pocket containing the scrap held these words:

-**