Tales from the Flashback: "Thunder Lizard Road"

The ugly truth was that the numbers on the chalkboard—having failed to engage his imagination—were as good as invisible to him. And so he read Spiderman, which had color and texture, danger, stakes—until the sun passed behind a cloud and directed his attention through the louvered windows: where he saw a flock of seagulls erupt from the playground, beyond which and across the street lay the YMCA, and realized, or perhaps only imagined, that they had scattered before a stampeding triceratops, which was itself being pursued by a Tyrannosaurs rex, which he watched until the creature had disappeared around the edge of the building.