I'm not saying that everything is survivable. Just that everything except the last thing is.

What is an "instant" death anyway? How long is an instant? Is it one second? Ten? The pain of those seconds must have been awful as her heart burst and her lungs collapsed and there was no air and no blood to her brain and only raw panic. What the hell is instant? Nothing is instant. Instant rice takes five minutes, instant pudding an hour. I doubt that an instant of blinding pain feels particularly instantaneous.

We idealize them as gods or dismiss them as animals.

Half-drunk on well-creamed gas station coffee and the exhilarating loneliness of a freeway in nighttime.

And as paralyzing and upsetting as all the never agains were, the final leaving felt perfect. Pure. The most distilled possible form of liberation.

Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, / The muttering retreats / Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels / And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: / Streets that follow like a tedious argument / Of insidious intent / To lead you to an overwhelming question.../ Oh, do not ask, 'What is it?' / Let us go and make our visit"' 'I'm in love with you,' he said quietly.

I expertly angled my raison bran to accomodate the g-forces.