The world, for Ethel, was three colors. The deep blue of the sky, the impossible red of the desert and the living green of the forest. Home was the border between them all. Home was Gran, who was "fast in all directions," Pop, who was "grounded silence" and Ethel could just be Ethel.

It was a life of unspoken understanding. A "thanks" was never needed for a new bike chain, just as an "I love you" was never needed to feel the "unspoken alliance of minds" she shared with Gran. They just knew .

In her lab, Gran would mutter about "polymer decay" and forget her tea, goggles perched on her head. She wasn't "crazy", she just saw connections from all directions at once. And in that "fast" way of seeing, she saw Ethel perfectly.

Ethel rode the fence line, just because. She wasn't like the "stock kids" with their "big boots, big bikes, bigger land." She wasn't interested in riding gates or fences . She was interested in the "weird pixel on satellite" that shouldn't have been there. The "bend in the earth" she found herself.

It wasn't a cliff, not exactly. It was a twenty meter drop into a basin wrapped in green, a place where one wrong step would mean not landing straight, or at least that is how it looked.

The "stock kids" wanted the moment, the film, the proof. Ethel just wanted to test their perspectives.