I have no need for the past, I thought, like a child. I did not consider that the past might have a need for me.

I would have done anything for him. Maybe that was my sickness. We made love in nothing places and turned the lights off. It felt like crying. We could not look at each other. It always had to be from behind. Like that first time. And I knew he wasn't thinking of me. He squeezed my sides so hard, and pushed so hard. Like he was trying to push me through to somewhere else. Why does anyone ever make love?

But I still couldn't figure out what it all meant. The more I found out, the less I understood.

He removed several pages of death certificates, which were picked up by another breeze and sent into the trees. Some would fall with the leaves that September. Some would fall with the trees generations later.

If god exists, he is not to be believed in.

I ran rather than walked, anxious to lose my way. All I wanted was to be unsure.

I don't mind if smiles come at my expense, I'm a small price to pay.