Some of my happiest childhood memories end in a painful death. Every Saturday after soccer, the Taiwanese twins next door would come over with their Monster Manual and a drawstring bag full of odd dice, and we’d descend the steps to face skeletons in cages, poison rivers, monsters on thrones, and a bloody Minotaur who butchered me, on more than one occasion, as my companions scrambled for the secret exit. Otherwise my early years were uneventful. I dripped ink onto paper. I rode my bicycle to MusicLand. Now I find myself steadying a wobbly deck chair under my wife as she tapes a raptor’s silhouette to our sliding glass door. We are making home improvements to our sunlit underworld. Soon we will leave for the march downtown. Supervising our work from her inflatable pool, Mira flashes us a thumbs-up. There is a feathery thud against the window next door.