When, without explanation,

When, without explanation, Operations takes one of the timeclocks off the wall, we understand that now there is less time than ever. The white and blue Department of Corrections schoolbus continues to arrive every hour on the hour full of cussing prisoners; handcuffed, they hold desperately onto their pants, for their belts have been confiscated. They know better than we, that the sooner you fall behind, the more time you have to catch up.

We leave the office on the coattails of daylight, our foreheads black with the smudge of the redacting pencil, which is now a stub. We while away our week’s pay in the Soda Shop on Chambers Street, where there hangs a sign that warns, "There will be a surcharge on any sale where we have to listen to your troubles." When yet another youth throws himself off an NYU roof, we disagree whether suicide is a disease you can or cannot catch.

One day there is an office-wide email from a woman who found a ring in an elevator. "Describe it and it’s yours," she promises. That night on the seabound Q, a radiant stranger in a sharp tuxedo holds a tiny Tiffany bag. The turquoise is very telling. I wish him good luck. Soon thereafter, at the post office, Ilyusha spots a girl with a heavy ring dropping one hundred invitations into our zip code slot alone. "Our invitation will surely come in the mail," he tells me. We wait for it.

Meanwhile, the fattest baby in the world is born in Siberia to Tatiana Barabanova, whose last name means, possessing the qualities of a drum. Paul Potts, a cell phone salesman from Wales, wins Britain’s Got Talent with the aria, Nessun Dorma. Ilyusha says he can be the new third tenor, but only after he changes his name to Potterissimo. When a television show host in Copenhagen presents the singer with a trophy as a token of the Danish people’s appreciation, Paul Potts says, "Thank you, and as a token of my gratitude to the Danish people, let me hand the trophy back to you." To its credit, the crowd cheers. "Who do you like better, the Mets or the Yankees," the press asks Bloomberg, and he answers, "I’m from Boston, I’m just the Mayor here."

"Who’s the best," Ilyusha asks, and I answer, "We are."