Meta was driving to her doctor appointment (it's a doctor, just like any other) when she saw the yard sale just off the road. Tables were set up just outside the fence of a cow pasture. There were mounds of clothes and end tables stacked on each other like thick, wooden playing cards. Mosquito-bitten people swarmed the area (the sort of people you see at antique festivals, when you're not sure whether they're there for the fun of it or because they'll be using a newspaper as a blanket tonight). Meta didn't usually stop at yard sales (she neither understood them as sources of enjoyment nor would she be using a Sunday News Sentinel for warmth), but she was in no hurry to see Dr. Shurilar. So she pulled her Corolla, with a cracked windshield and a dent in the passenger door, into the grass beside an SUV and headed toward the junk sale.