Two days before he was supposed to move to Cleveland with his mother and her husband, I took my son to the mall to buy his first winter coat. Gene sat quietly in the passenger seat. I could feel him building to another one of his questions. Lately he’d been coming up with impossibilities like, “What is funny?” or “Why don’t birds have teeth?” We’d spent hours driving around, or sitting in parks if the weather was nice, discussing the answers. Just as the mall came into view a couple blocks ahead, Gene asked if I knew what ninjas were.

“They’re warriors,” I said, “from Japan.”

“Ancient Japan,” he said.

“What’s the difference?”

“It’s the same, only older.”

 --from "For Out of the Heart Proceed" by Jensen Beach, published in the pre-ordable Avery 5