(I am writing a book. It is called Salamander. It is about burning in a fire. And a journal of the plague year(s). It will be longer than The Anatomy Of Melancholy. This here is a small sliver: 21,682 words. Lie back. Smoke some opium. See if it does anything, for you. & if it seems like, in this part, I’m dancing around the fire, not really burning, not being there, in the thing itself: have you never read Slaughterhouse-Five? Catch-22? “There, there. There, there.” And. “So it goes.”)

February 2 is the day the Americans everywhere pause in their labors to await word from an oracular rodent who comes up from out of the ground to deliver climate wisdoms.

“Zoomancy,” that is the fancy word for such: humans scrutinizing the parts, patterns, particulars, of non-human creatures, for clues as to past, present, future.