"Looking down at your feet won't help you, son." He looked up at a woman as thin as her shadow and old enough to get away with giving advice to strangers. "I'm not really looking there, am I? I'm just... thinking."

She shrugged and puttered off along the path that circled the park. He kept thinking, listening to the cars drive by and the yells of kids playing baseball, and he wound up on his back staring into the sky.

"Looking up into the clouds won't help, either," came the voice.

"I said I'm thinking," he said. "Who cares where I point my eyes?" She smiled a knowing smile and walked on. Scowling, he turned this way and that until he was looking out at the cars driving by.

This time he saw her coming. "No," he said, "I don't think this way will help either, okay?"

"Well," she said, "maybe if one of those cars loses control." A crack thundered and a baseball missed his head by inches. "But if you'd been facing that way, you might not have shit your pants just now." She leaned close. "Whatever else is going on, always keep your eye on the ball."