The procession started at the foot of the bronze statue and wound through town. Several hundred people marched, waving homemade signs and banners; a large percentage of those affected. The weather was bitterly cold, so it was an army of puffy, brightly coloured michelin men that stomped through town chanting slogans.

As the march progressed, more and more people joined it for love of a parade. They picked up the slogans quickly, and chanted louder than those who knew and cared about the point of the demonstration. They carried no signs, but laundry soap, grocery bags, and library books: whatever they’d been holding when they met the parade.

The parade came to a large brick building and formed two broad lines in front of the three-story window which served as the building’s entrance. The path to the door was lined with blue detergent bottles two rows deep. Two men in suits led the parade, one with a video camera, one with a megaphone who directed the chanting. “Hey! Hey!” shouted the megaphone, and, “Ho! Ho!” replied the crowd.

Inside the building, men and women gathered on the wrought-iron staircase that coiled up beside the window, and watched the protesters. No sound came into the building through the thick glass, so the demonstration puffed and bellowed with the quiet hum of the air filters.