081613 #worm In first grade, there were numbers above the cubbies. The number one was red. The number one has always seemed red to me. Primary, urgent, cocksure. Number one. The other numbers have their own colors. Two is orange, three green, four a more grayish green. And so on. Another thing from grade school was those playground balls. It was years later that I learned they came in all different sizes. The only ones we had were the ones maybe just a hair smaller than a basketball. They made a very distinct PANG when they hit the asphalt, hard. We had asphalt for everything back then, remember. And then there was the time someone had swiped a broken red ball point across the faux-leather-grain of the rubbery back of the bus seat in front of the one I was in. Someone said it was blood. Argument ensued. It is blood! No it isn't! It would seep into those cracks if it was blood! Why did it matter so much? Why do I remember that?