In his own life, Alfonzo tried to develop his own propensity for slowness into a radical position. He chewed on his thoughts like they were grass, and on grass like each blade was a word in a sentence. He would hum no, while also seeing arguments for always already and yes and. Why did he need to choose? He would turn over the possibility that truth might be a perpetual flicker. Perhaps one needed to hold complexity always in one’s stomach. Truths, he thought, must lie somewhere amid endless questions, self-recriminations, excuses. Like pebbles scattered throughout a brambled field. Some might call the ruminants a species of flip-floppers. But Alfonzo preferred to think of his kind as organically rhizomatic thinkers. His dad scoffed whenever Alfonzo used words like rhizomatic.

But stop, he hummed to himself. Focus, hay-head. This wasn’t about his father. This wasn’t about digestion. This moment was about paper. The printer needed paper, or it needed to be unplugged. Those were the two options. Neither was good.

Alfonzo chewed his tasteless grass ball. The machine bleated.

If he unplugged the machine, the printer would be silent. It was tempting. But unplugging Aztek Howtek would also erase the machine’s memory. It would forget everything, what page it was on, if it did or did not have ink. The machine might very well have an existential crisis and fall into an hours-long fugue state. Unplugging was a desperate act.

Alfonzo’s ears wiggled as though they were trying to flick away the sonic flies of the printer’s complaints. He felt like ramming into the wall. His big dumb ears would protect his brain from damage.

The Aztek Howtek bleeped.

Alfonzo cursed luck, planning, the university system, and his overall approach to life.

The bleating continued.

If a machine runs out of paper in a basement, and only a second assistant hears it, does it make a sound? Yes, Alfonzo could answer that koan.

Mitchell, the tall and talented llama who always solved Alfonzo’s problems, was in his own office right upstairs. Alfonzo didn’t want to go running to him yet again, but his friend would have a clue—or paper.

6.

Mitchell Cusco—lifelong pal of Alfonzo Velloso Faca and the public sector’s most handsome and popular llama—was not actually in his office. Rather, he was watching currents of animal ebb and flow across the park. It was 11:17 a.m., and Mitchell had been on a “site visit” all morning. That site had been his straw bed, but no one in the Hall needed to know that.

Sheepy clouds and blue skies reflected in the skyscrapers’ glass. The mirroring made the buildings almost invisible. Black cars and buses grumbled at lights. Delivery birds flitted above traffic. A pack of teenage raccoons yelped and tussled. Some breakdancing goats jumped around for cheering tourists. The fountain waters flew in an arch.