A great big girl tightly wrapped in screaming red and orange stretch fabric; a K-Mart special blouse and shorts cutting so deeply into the loose, doughy flesh that it looked painful.
 I was down at the playground watching my daughter manipulate its intricate caste system when this girl arrived, walking past me with mouth agape revealing teeth with little experience of dentistry.
 She was pale, pale with zinc white legs coming out of her flaming shorts, a thin thatch of blonde-brown hair crowning her head and her pimpled, flat face, heavily plastered with flesh tone Clearasil, was the most color she had barring the clothes.
 She was so desperately unattractive she made me think again that homeliness, in this culture that holds white teeth, regular features and a flat stomach more important than scholarship or character, should be considered a disability.  Her great, ugly first impression must be a handicap of some kind.  She might have the soul of an angel and Beowulf's courage, but would anyone in her life ever get past the facade and see this?
  She pushed a stroller with one hand and toted a baby carrier with the other and this heartened me.  At least she had known love, if only the physical and had been able to bear the fruit.  She had her babies.  I didn't look for a wedding ring.  That was none of my business.
 At the swings she set the carrier down, began getting her babies out and I saw that they were dolls; big, pink plastic baby dolls with mouths in a permanent pout and molded, blonde plastic hair.  Identical dollies naked but for diapers and the big girl placed them, back to back, in a baby swing; four plastic legs poking through the holes, blank blue eyes staring out.
 She swing them then, pushing them gently.  She didn't coo to the dolls or say anything, but silently stood pushing the swing as if it was one more chore to be done.  If she was having fun she hid it well and I sat thinking that this is where we should be hunting for treasures, mysteries to solve.  To hell with space and unexplored mountains and the oceans' bottoms.  This huge girl's life, this business with the dolls is all mystery I need.  Solve her story and the meaning of life will be easy meat.