Epigraphs are like little appetizers to the great entrée of a story. They illuminate important aspects of the story, and they get us headed in the right direction.
"O dear white children casual as birds,
Playing among the ruined languages,
So small beside their large confusing words,
So gay against the greater silences
Of dreadful things you did..."
—from "Anthem for St. Cecilia's Day,"
W.H. Auden
The epigraph gives a nifty snapshot of what's in store for us in the near-future of Feed's America. The kids flit around their world like attention-deficit-disordered birds, speaking in a comically debased form of English. Big words and heavy issues just confuse people like Calista, Loga, Marty, and Link. They'd all rather play spin-the-bottle or splash around in their Top Quark swimming pool while ignoring the consequences of their lifestyles—like their hair and skin falling off and whole villages in other countries being drowned in industrial sludge.