America can take a billion and really cut it down to size.
The British billion was a million million—
a one followed by twelve noughts.
What’s the difference?
Three nines followed by nine noughts.
Still,
a billion is big.
A billion is every cheesy wotsit filling up the back of 772 windowless white vans.
A billion is a stack of pennies reaching 963.12 miles into the sky.
A billion is two to the power of thirty, or two doubled thirty times, give or take about 74 million.
A billion is just one flock of passenger pigeons blocking out the sun as they fly over Louisville,
undiminished for three straight days.
America can take a billion and really cut it down to size.
There was a time when the air was literally filled with pigeons and onlookers suffocated
on feathers while fathers and sons stood on the river bank
and pointed their shotguns towards a feast.
On September 1, 1914, Martha, named after our first first lady, fell off her perch in Cincinnati.
Alone.