"They may bite you" he was often heard to say "but no one, but no one, can ever bite you in the teeth." Though his meaning was unclear, it was generally accepted as true and the children - so selected for displays of a willingness to work through common ear infections and predispositions towards cannibalism - were given sometime occasion to test its veracity as they tried to make plans for their evening without the guidance of hour or minute hands instead making use of only second hands, the evening weather report and makeshift wind sockets. The results were clear and if it cannot be said that they were running away from something they must have been running towards something else as they spent most of their time - understanding it however they might have - in fits of frenetic desperation or its intestinal equivalent. Such is the way of children made to do with just that which their parents had; for what could be wrong with parents and children in social stasis is just that which should be wrong with it: a perverse incentive to give your children something better by conception when scarcely ready to bear for little reason more than to make sure their implements are only 19 years old and not 27-33 and the fact that the satisfaction come by through experimentation with cannibal children will always be fleeting.