It is a moral error to call a person a piece of shit. Shit is an upstanding, necessary biological citizen. To call a person a piece of shit is a gratuitous derogation of shit. Walking off a university campus today, I was behind a man with a comb-over so recondite I thought it a hatchet wound. In traffic I caught the 4:09 p.m. play of “Stairway to Heaven.” I saw a dick in the street and another, I think, in the bushes. Little wobbly fresh things. The women have got the revolution rolling. I endorse their efforts as I run from their efforts. It is hard to yell “Viva la revolución!” as you run breathless from the revolution. But if you do not want to see your unit fresh in the bush or forlorn in the street, run you must. And better all around to run silently than to announce your presence with political bloviation. Just run, support, and send regrets. I have been eating oatmeal. It has never appealed to me much before. How can a fly appear so quickly on a stool in the woods? 
Padgett Powell is the author of six novels, including The Interrogative Mood and Edisto (a finalist for the National Book Award), and two collections of stories. He has received a Whiting Award, the Rome Prize Fellowship in Literature, and the James Tait Black Prize.
Illustration: Kevin Sampsell
