“I memorized all of “John Carter” and “Tarzan,” and sat on my grandparents’ front lawn repeating the stories to anyone who would sit and listen. I would go out to that lawn on summer nights and reach up to the red light of Mars and say, “Take me home!” I yearned to fly away and land there in the strange dusts that blew over dead-sea bottoms toward the ancient cities.”

“Lawn roller? ... What is it for?"Why it is for rolling lawns."I shook my head and laughed back at him. "Do I look like I have hay in my ears fellow? Just why, madman, would anyone want to roll a lawn? There would be nothing left but mud, and the grass would die from lack of sun."No, Korvas. Rolling means to flatten."No, it doesn't. A roller rollsa a flattener flattens."Obushawn sighed and nodded. "Very well, it is a lawn flattener. It's for flattening lawns."I see no purpose in it. If I wanted a flat lawn, that's what I would have planted in the first place. I think you are a failure at business, you obviously drink to excess, and beat your wife, dog, and children, you steal from the temple and blind beggars, and are most likely well on your way to being put away in a home. I do not want to talk to you anymore. Go away.”

“What do you think it is?""It could be anything from a lawn trimmer to a bomb, for all I know.""I would never build a lawn trimmer," Myrnin said. "What did the lawn ever do to me?”

“Listen, you mind if I take a T.O. and check in for a sec,” he interjected.V’s diamond eyes narrowed. “With who?”Right on cue, John jumped in, asking about the Hummer and its rehab plan—like somebody waving a torch in front of a T. rex to redirect it. As V started talking about the SUV’s future as lawn sculpture, Qhuinn nearly blew a kiss at his buddy.”

“I would never build a lawn trimmer," Myrnin said. "What did the lawn ever do to me?”

“Sprawled out on the front lawn Looking up at an ordinary sky It could fall on me and somehow be The day I didn't die”