“I have good news and I have bad news. 
Actually, I have crazy news and I have bad news. 
Actually, all the news I have is bad, but some of it is also crazy.”
	Caity Weaver in The New York Times Magazine 

A man walked into the sea. He carried a briefcase 
filled with hundred dollar bills, had eaten seafood 
at the pricey little cafe on the shore, Clams Casino, 
lobster bisque, haddock salad with aubergines, 
sangria to drink, and after, a Calvados and two scoops 
of vanilla ice cream. I know this because I was there, 
having a snack at the next table. He kept looking 
at his phone, worrying the silver ring on his left hand. 
I walked over, handed him my card. I told him 
there was good news and bad news. 
He wanted the bad news first, about his lover 
going back to Japan, about the contents 
of his mother’s will, about glaciers and drowning 
polar bears. What’s the good news? he wanted to know. 
I told him about the 4000 planets too far or too close 
to their suns. You see? I said. God so loved the earth 
that he placed it not so close to the sun that the seas 
would boil, nor so far, that the seas would freeze. 
Either that, I told him, or it’s a crap shoot. 
He paid for his meal and mine, left the waiter a good tip, 
then drove his electric car down to the boardwalk. 
He waved once before the undertow dragged him down.
I guess he opened the latch on his case, because soon 
the harbor was filled with bills floating like seaweed 
or driftwood or dead alewives as bathers scurried toward the waves.