A tree and a date. Nothing else.

No text, no joke, no caption. A slice.

Off the griddle at the snack bar, wrapped in paper, eaten standing up.

Came for the snack bar. Stayed for the snack bar.

Second shelf of the snack bar, under the lamp since noon.

Standing in the road. The road can wait.

Looks up when you pass. Does not stop chewing.

Shorn in April and indignant about it until June.

Faster than you. Always was.

Comes to the fence for apples. Only for apples.

Follows you the length of the dooryard, then loses interest.

Eats the fence. Then starts on the gate.

Two gears, both slow, and it has never once failed to start.

Faces the camera. Knows exactly what it is doing.

Crossing the road in June, at its own pace, with the traffic waiting.

The one that did not get away, drawn slightly larger than it was.

Surfaces once off the stern and the whole boat goes quiet.

No reason. Just a good mood, at sixteen by sixteen.

The same face in outline, so it takes the colour of the shirt.

Maine flew it from 1901 to 1909, voted it down again in 2024, and flies it everywhere anyway.

Tree, star, and the word the state put on its own plates.

A tree, a state and a date. That is the entire pitch.

One up. Watermelon on the dock in August.

Somebody found the sound test, and the whole arcade heard it.

Achievement unlocked at 6:42 in the morning.

The sign at the top of the run, and the only honest one on the mountain.

It has the right of way. It has always had the right of way.

Level four. Terrible music. Everybody remembers level four.

Weather warning, February, flashing, no way to skip it.

A thousand points for a view you had to walk up to.

The attract loop, running to nobody, in the arcade on the pier.

Nine seconds is longer than it sounds.

Save point. The hot chocolate is extra and always was.

Automated in 1990. Still the only thing out there with an opinion about the weather.

Out of the harbour by seven, back before the afternoon breeze fills in.

Boards on the roof in November, because that is when the surf is any good.

The soft one. Goes with everything.

Loose-limbed and going nowhere in particular.

The sign nobody has ever obeyed.

Two of them. That is the entire warning.

It is faster than you. It has always been faster than you.

Straight down, no turns, poles tucked.