Playground

by Richard Powers

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.

But the legislators were too benighted by the whole rise of social media to stay on course or to grasp what was happening.

island has always hung flowers around the necks of its destroyers.

The pulse of the waves battering the beach. The songs of shorebirds. The trees dropping food for free. The breeze running its hand across the damaged land. The air, the mercy, the sea.