“Three!” Screamed the trees. As Taryn watched, Gerald, still looking at the catalog, stood motionless as his face flattened like a deflating balloon.

“I don’t get what you’re saying. Gerald is my neighbor. Who are you talking about?”

“Three,” the crow said. “Three,” with sad emphasis.

“I’m confused, which is a difficult thing to do to an eight dimensional being.” Alex sounded stressed.

“Gerald is the human person. The thing,” Taryn said slowly, making a meal of knowing something Alex and Sam didn’t, “is called a catalog.”

“Well Catalog is in the process of stealing Gerarald’s dimensions, so unless you’d like him to be zero–“

“Three,” said a jogger.

“Not Catalog, like a name, it’s a thing, an object.”

“Exactly.”

“You didn’t know that, don’t act like you knew it.”

“That’s sort of, almost true,” Sam said, “but it’s getting pretty tight in here we’re five dimensions down already.”

On the stoop, the distance between Gerald’s shoulders disappeared to nothing.

“In your dimension, Catalog looks like a thing. Like us.”

“You’re objects?”

“Sugar packet,” said Alex.

“Bag,” said Sam. “Any being more than four dimensions and that’s the best we can do in yours.”

Taryn wondered if she was imagining hearing their voices coming from the direction of her hand.

“Can you understand faster, we’re running out of time. And dimensions. We’re down to–.”

“Three,” a crumpled can offered.

“Oh hi Bob!” said Sam.

“Four dimensions, and you can be a crow, but four dimensions exactly,” said the crow, which wasn’t nearly as strange as what came next.

Until next time…