My thoughts were interrupted when Amanda said, “I wish that damned car behind us would either drop back or go around us. It’s really starting to piss me off.” I turned in the passenger seat and could see a vehicle behind us, following too close. “Has it been following that close for a while?” “Just for the past few minutes,” Amanda said. “And the bastard has his high beams on. People can be so damned stupid and inconsiderate.” As she was talking, I felt her accelerate. We were already doing seventy-five and I looked over at the speedometer and saw it jump up to eighty-five. The guy behind us not only kept up but seemed to be edging even closer. “What in hell is this idiot trying to do?” I shouted. Probably some damned asshole kid out on a Friday night trying to show off to his girlfriend or buddies. “Idiot’s going to get himself killed,” I said. “Or us,” Amanda said, and punched it up to ninety, then ninety-five, then a hundred. “Shit! He’s hanging right there with us.” I held up my hand to shield my eyes from his brights. It seemed like he was right in our damned trunk. “Hold on,” Amanda said and punched it up to a hundred and ten. I hoped her engine was well tuned and wouldn’t blow. Without warning, Amanda slammed on the brakes and I was jerked forward toward the dash board. I felt like the seat belt was ripping through my chest and waist. Behind us I heard more screeching and suddenly the high beams that had been flooding through our back window were gone. Then, just as suddenly, I was thrown back in the seat, my head bouncing off the head rest as Amanda floored the Toyota and shot ahead. “Jesus H. Christ!” I shouted. “I told you to hold on, didn’t I?” Amanda said, laughing. As I regained my composure, I twisted around in the seat, looking for the other car. I couldn’t see anything. “What the hell happened to the other guy?” I asked. “Last I saw, his headlights were doing 360s in the dark.” “Damn. Should we go back?” “Fuck that,” Amanda said. “I hope the bastard’s in a ditch somewhere with his head busted open.”

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore— While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping—rapping at my chamber door. "'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door— Only this and nothing more." Ah, distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December, And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore— For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore— Nameless here for evermore. And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain Thrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before; So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating "'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door— Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;— This it is and nothing more."

A certain king had a beautiful garden, and in the garden stood a tree which bore golden apples. These apples were always counted, and about the time when they began to grow ripe it was found that every night one of them was gone. The king became very angry at this, and ordered the gardener to keep watch all night under the tree. The gardener set his eldest son to watch; but about twelve o'clock he fell asleep, and in the morning another of the apples was missing. Then the second son was ordered to watch; and at midnight he too fell asleep, and in the morning another apple was gone. Then the third son offered to keep watch; but the gardener at first would not let him, for fear some harm should come to him: however, at last he consented, and the young man laid himself under the tree to watch. As the clock struck twelve he heard a rustling noise in the air, and a bird came flying that was of pure gold; and as it was snapping at one of the apples with its beak, the gardener's son jumped up and shot an arrow at it. But the arrow did the bird no harm; only it dropped a golden feather from its tail, and then flew away. The golden feather was brought to the king in the morning, and all the council was called together. Everyone agreed that it was worth more than all the wealth of the kingdom: but the king said, 'One feather is of no use to me, I must have the whole bird.'

"I don"t intend him, or any man or woman, to be all my life - good heavens, no! There are heaps of things in me that he doesn"t, and shall never, understand." Thus she spoke before the wedding ceremony and the physical union, before the astonishing glass shade had fallen that interposes between married couples and the world. She was to keep her independence more than do most women as yet. Marriage was to alter her character - a little. There was an unforeseen surprise, a cessation of the winds and odours of life, a social pressure that would have her think conjugally.

I wish this story were different. I wish it were more civilized. I wish it showed me in a better light, if not happier, then at least more active, less hesitant, less distracted by trivia. I wish it had more shape. I wish it were about love, or about sudden realizations important to one"s life, or even about sunsets, birds, rainstorms, or snow. Maybe it is about those things, in a way; but in the meantime there is so much else getting in the way, so much whispering, so much speculation about others, so much gossip that cannot be verified, so many unsaid words, so much creeping about and secrecy. And there is so much time to be endured, time heavy as fried food or thick fog; and then all at once these red events, like explosions, on streets otherwise decorous and matronly and somnambulant.

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