There is a ball on the grass. It is orange and blue rubber, about the size of a tennis ball. It is about half the size of a tennis ball. There is a ball exactly like a tiny tennis ball, yellow and fuzzy, and it squeaks. There is a ball, a child’s toy soccer ball, rubbery and miniature and deflated, about 7 inches in diameter. There is a ball and it glows in the dark. There is a tennis ball, brand-new. There is a tennis ball as faded and dirty and worn and grotty as a ball can be, found in a swamp or a ditch.

There is an antler jammed between the driver’s seat and the center console, slid so far down that to get it out while driving I have to crush my hand bones together in order to squeeze my fingers down into the gap. There is an antler in the footwell. There is an antler under the seat; far under the couch; under the chair. There is an antler pressed against my neck, wet and slimy. There is an antler pressed against my ear. There is an antler pressed against my leg as I drive. There is an antler in my crotch. I am sitting on an antler.

There is a beef bone jammed under the couch. There is a hoof, filled with peanut butter, and it smells like a lifetime walked on a barnyard plus peanut butter and it is jammed under the couch. There is a pig’s ear under the chair. There is a beef bone in the footwell, there is a beef bone jammed between the passenger seat and the center console. There is an antler jammed between the passenger seat and the center console. There is an antler jammed between the seat and the center console and it has shifted in such a way that it is sliding into a gap in the plastic somewhere down near the bottom of the center console and it threatens to slip into the frame of the car if not retrieved in exactly the right way, and soon.

There is a hoof filled with peanut butter and it is lost and can’t be found. But, it is somewhere.

There is a ball under the couch. There is a ball under the chair. There is a ball in the bathtub. There is a ball in the tiny trash can next to the toilet. There is a ball in the hotel sink. There is a ball behind the hotel bed and I have to move the bed to get it out, and the bed is very heavy. There is a ball in the corner of the room. There is a ball behind the hotel bed again, and I have to move the bed. There is a ball somewhere inside the cabinets, under the shelves and lurking in a liminal space within the kitchen cabinet structure in such a way that the only way to retrieve it is to pull a piece of paneling off the bottom of the cabinet and pull it out. There is a ball under the stairs. There is a ball downstairs, in the forbidden room. There is a ball in the shower. There is a ball in my boot.

There is a ball behind the heavy hotel bed again, and I have to drag the bed out from the wall to get it. There is a ball in the cup holder. There is a ball in the leaves, camouflaged. There is a ball in the corner, underneath the plant.

The motel bed frame is flush with the floor, and pushed snug against the wall, and there is no place for the ball to be. It is an unusual construction, solid, heavy, with no visible gaps between the floor or the wall. But, we believe. We know. I dismantle the motel bed, pulling up the mattress and lifting the heavy box spring awkwardly up off its motel frame, holding it there with my shoulder so that I can swing my flashlight around, and there, deep inside the bed structure, is the ball.

There is a wet ball, pressed against my hand.