By eight the kiosk window was already warm. A paper cone stood in the tray like a very small usher, and a dish of butter waited with its lid slightly open, as if it would be rude to miss a greeting.
We asked a man at the front of the line, holding his coins in both hands. "I used to shake the pan," he told us. "This morning each kernel leaned toward the butter and said a very small hello. Then it nodded to the cone. Only after that did it open into one pale flower, just large enough to sit down."
The notebook taped to the counter read: please do not tap the glass until the nod; the kernels will not guess. A day later the same man came back, and the cone remembered his place before the first kernel had even thought of blooming.