Playground

by Richard Powers

It’s a simple, small thing, but I’ve never

told anyone but you. When I was young, I could breathe underwater.

Play was evolution’s way of building brains, and any creature with a brain as developed as a giant oceanic manta sure used it. If you want to make something smarter, teach it to play.

Democracy was slower and more erratic than windsurfing.

Stoically renouncing her greediness, she wedged the drink box back into the rocks of its tidal pool home. “Is a thing still garbage, once life starts using it?”