Its all become obvious now, with the sightless timing of a stygian greek tragedy. Why was I there? An accident of circumstance? No.

Retrospection has shown that I suffered from a very particular malaise. I was a putz, a schlamel, a spineless white fish drifting naively through a world imagined to be purposeless. It was no coincidence that we met.

I worked the graveyard shift at a small pamphlet printing operation, spending the worlds sleeping hours maintaining a machine whose goal in life was to replicate a single advert a billion times over. In perfect four#color harmony, sheaves and bundles of 'stunning price reductions' and 'final liquidation sales' were born into the world. It wasn't a bad job, I even enjoyed it sometimes. Having lived all my life in the midwest, with its wide#open wheat fields, the solitude of a city locked into its dreams was a blessing.

Perhaps if I hadn't seen him on that distant morning... but no. I recognize now the workings of the rational mind, its blindness. Is it the fear of dependency upon criteria of mere trust, the death of the ruler, the encroachment of victimhood? Possibly, I tell myself, even though such thoughts serve no purpose other than poor entertainment. I may as well stare at the low#grade oil painting upon the wall. Yes, I brought it with me; it, and the small collection of over#read books which have always followed me around, out of sentimentality or obligation, I am not sure.

Looking at the painting, I think she knew. I fantasize that she still cared about me, that she was telling me to leave, to save myself. "Dean," she had said, retreating from the harsh lights of dawn, holding out the flimsy canvas to me even as she fled back into her darkened room, and her voice had said it all.

I saw him from a block away, on the corner of Broadway and Fifth. The streets were empty of life, garbage blew in small dawn whirlwinds, gusting out of the calm still air. His blue coat was dirty, stained. As I moved towards and past him, he turned and looked at me. Those eyes... they were so empty, set in a pasty, fleshy face that looked like it hadn't seen the sun in ages. Grayish stubbled fur grew on it like a white mold. I halted in my steps, confused about the confrontation.

His mouth circled the receiver, drool flowed from his lips and puddled at his feet. The sound was most disturbing: a sucking, slurping noise, like beached fish gasps. In that millennium gap of two seconds I stood frozen, he seemed to swell, his face growing ruddy in the morning's light. I quickly resumed walking, avoiding his gaze, disturbed.

Although the incident stuck with me throughout my dreams of that day, when I awoke, refreshed, it had all but passed my mind. Sarah was just getting home from work, I recognized the tread of her feet in the hall. We'd been living together for almost two years now, and we were pretty serious.

"Dean?" I heard her call. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes. The bedroom door swung open.

"Dean!" she smiled at me, her long brown hair glinting in the red light of the city's sunset. I smiled back.

"Wake up, sleepyhead. How was your day?" she said, plopping heavily down on the bed. Eight hour days of secretarial work had given her a bad back. My job was to massage it all out of her, starting with her tense shoulders. A three year stint as a chiropractic assistant in San Francisco had given me a wealth of technical ability.

"Oh, that feels good," she murmured, leaning heavily back into my kneading fingers.

"Julie's coming over for dinner tonight, were going out for a movie. Mmmm... a little lower... that's good." Julie was her best friend from work. They gossiped constantly about their annoying slimy bosses and Julies ever-morphing love life.

"What time?"

"Eight o'clock, the movies at nine-thirty."

"I cant make it."

"I thought..."

"No, its Tuesday. I start at five." Her face fell.

"I forgot. Oh well..." We fell silent a minute, locked into our own thoughts. It was nice, that silence, the silence which is shared with someone other than the wind, the emptiness.

"Dean, we never see each other enough. Couldn't you find a new job?"

I kissed the back of her neck.

"Sarah, you know the apartment costs too much. This job pays a lot,"

"Because nobody in their right mind would want it," she said, pouting.

"Hey, ill try looking again, but you know how it was before..."

We had had to borrow money from her mother-in-law, all that was left of her side of the family. She was the kind of old spinster who held onto money with an iron grip, blackmailing her youthful kin into abiding by ancient cultural codes. We had to live together secretly, at least until we were married.

Sarah fell back into my arms. I looked at the clock. It was time to get ready for work.

Yes, I remember those days now, sitting alone with my warm fire in these wooded hills. Today I killed a rabbit, and its pungent roasted odor filled the tiny cabin, the rich taste filling my stomach. Does memory make the fear any stronger? I have often pondered this question. Sometimes it haunts my sleep, making me toss and turn. On nights like those, I awake fitfully in the dark, reaching out beside me... but she is not there.

It must have been a month or two later that she got the first call. Usually I talked to her from work, when the supervisor took a cigarette break outside. Around eleven, she would go to bed, and Id call and wish her good night. I miss those calls. Perhaps they were dull, ordinary, the kind of thing you love to hate when you're single, but they were human. And now, in the absence of all that was, its role became all the stronger.

She said she was feeling a bit tired, ill. I asked if it had been a hard day at work, but she said it hadn't. I told her to see how she felt in the morning, said I loved her. We hung up, and I worried all night long to the background of the noisy presses.

On my way home that morning, I encountered the man in the blue coat again. This time, he was across the street right outside the building, hunched over in a glass payphone box. The city didn't have many of them left, they were too much of a target for vandals. Why do people fight to destroy the past so much? Is it a dread of things walled up, of old conversations and moments trapped in the glass boxes, anger at the fragility of the glass which hems them in? Its not worth wondering about, but its what my mind does. I watch it like I used to watch tv, the changing channels. Never getting too deep.

I spied him from the corner of my eye. The booth was covered in city grime and graffiti, making it impossible to discern the foggy shape, but I could see enough to recognize him. He seemed agitated, shivering, attacking the handset with some violence. I hurried on past, trying to shut out the noises escaping from his presence, floating out into the dawn air.

At home, I entered the bedroom and threw my keys on the desk. Sarah was still asleep, the covers pulled up over her head. Gingerly, I peeled them back. She had slept in, it was past time for her to leave for work. Seeing her, I understood why. Her skin was pale, sweaty, and her eyes were black holes of bags.

"Sarah," I whispered, shaking her shoulder, but she didn't wake up. "Sarah," I said again, louder, speaking into her ear. Her eyes creaked open as if they were heavy weights, fluttering with the effort and blinking against the morning sun.

"Dean?" she croaked, her voice dry.

"Sarah, honey, its past time to wake up." She sat up, startled, but instantly collapsed weakly back into bed.

"Ooohhh I don't feel well. I don't think I should go..."

"Whatever you want. Think you feel like seeing a doctor?"

"No, its probably just the flu. Can you hand me the phone?"

I passed her the phone and went out to the kitchen to make some breakfast. There was a dusty can of chicken soup in the shadowy rear of the cupboard. Sarah stumbled sleepily into the kitchen letting the door slam behind her.

"Why don't you stay in bed? Ill get you breakfast," I said, holding up the soup can and smiling like a centerfold.

"No, i'm going in today. Mr. Reiner has some German clients coming by today. He really needs me."

"What a slavedriver. Well, what do you feel like? Eggs or soup?"

"I don't feel that hungry... maybe one egg. I'm going to get ready," she said, treading exhaustedly out to the bathroom.

While I was cooking us both some eggs, watching the butter sizzle and fry, the phone rang. It was Julie.

"Hi Dean," her piercing New Jersey accent rang in my ear. I could hear cars in the background, drowning out her voice. "Where's Sarah? Were supposed to share a taxi."

"Sarahs sick, shell be a little late," I said, wondering if I should yell into the phone. The background noise was terrible. It sounded like a building was being destroyed.

"Is that Julie?" Sarah yelled from the bathroom.

"Yeah," I hollered back, realizing that the pan was starting to release a cloud of noxious butter fumes. I turned the heat down, missing what Julie was yelling back at me.

"What?" I said into the phone.

"I said, was that Sarah?" Julie shouted into the receiver.

Sarah hollered something from the bathroom.

"What?" I yelled back, covering the phone with my hand.

"I said, what does Julie have to say?"

"Just a sec!" I yelled back at her, turning to the phone again.

"Now, what?" I said to Julie.

"Can I talk to Sarah?"

"Shes in the bathroom."

"Well, should I wait, or should I go myself?"

"Sarah!" I yelled into the bathroom. "Julies waiting for you!"

"Tell her to go... Ill see her at work."

I finally managed to get off the phone that first morning, and Sarah got off to work ok. I had a job interview at another uptown printing firm for an early morning shift, which would mean Sarah and I would have more time to spend together, so I was unable to see her before I went to work that night.

I was going to try and call her around eleven, but my supervisor sent me on a van run to the downtown office where they stored the new ink shipments.

On the way, I pulled over and stopped at a payphone, dialing the number, but the line was busy.

I drove through the gauntlet of shifting traffic signals wondering how she was feeling, my mind drifting, when a flurry of blue and white flashed in front of me. I slammed on the brakes, my heart pounding.

Pinned in the headlights like a pale fish, the man in the blue coat's face was caught startled, his eyes open and coldly empty. His shirt was soaked with spittle and drool, which ran down his chin and shirt and disappeared into a dark stain below his crotch. I had almost hit him in a crosswalk, I swore at myself, noticing the light had changed. I hurriedly rolled down the window and leaned out into the cool night air.

"I'm terribly sorry... I didn't see you there, I'm really, very sorry..."

The man just stood there, frozen. Even then, I admit I felt a little peeved at him, a little bothered about the way he responded to me.

"Look, I've seen you before you know," I told him. He grunted, in a strange guttural way, as if he had somehow lost the power of speech, as if his tongue or vocal chords had been cut out, then turned and fled into the dark shadows of the buildings. I lay back, sweating in the seat. Another car behind me idled up and honked. The light was green. I drove on.

When I returned the van, I decided to try and call her again even though it was almost twelve. The phone rang for what seemed an eternity. Finally, she picked up.

"Sarah? Sorry I've called so late. How are you feeling?" I said, relieved to finally have gotten through. A tiny voice, so tiny it startled me, barely escaped from the headset.

"Sarah? Can you hear me?" The sound of tiny scratching mice floated out and dissipated in the air. Listening, I heard my name appear faintly, as if on a cloud a million miles away.

"Dean?" it whispered.

"Sarah? Sarah? Are you there?"

"Dean..." her voice, a little stronger now.

"Sarah? Whats going on? You sound terrible."

"Dean, I'm.. I'm ok. Just tired."

"Are you sure you're ok?" I said, distressed, but she reassured me she was. I hung up when she said she just wanted to get some sleep.

"Hey Jerry," I called out to my supervisor, knocking on the window of his office. The door swung open, as if pushed by a breeze. He sat, limply grasping a coffee, listening to somebody on the other end of the phone line. A half attempted crosswords lay scattered on his desk. I mouthed words to him, but he was very engrossed in the call. Finally, he seemed to recognize that I was there and pulled himself off the phone.

"Jerry, my girlfriends really sick. You think I could take off early, in a couple hours?" I could see he really was against the idea, but I pushed him anyway. He brought up some flimsy excuses as to why he really needed me there, but soon relented, and I returned to my post feeding the hungry machines.

At about two o'clock in the morning, I took off for the walk home. It was a brisk night, cool and chilly. I didn't see any sign of the man in the blue coat, but a couple blocks from the apartment, an elderly lady lay nearly collapsed on the steps of the old stone church which had been turned into a furniture store. At first I thought she was just an ordinary bum and felt sorry for her, continuing on past, the habit of the city. Glancing at her, though, I saw she was actually very well dressed. I turned and confronted her, leaning over her supine form.

"Ma'am? are you all right?" I asked. Her face weakly emerged from under her bent arm.

"I'm cold, so cold.." she stuttered. I stepped back. her face... she wasn't an old woman at all, perhaps in her early thirties. But her face was sunken, collapsed, as if she were suffering from starvation.

"Do you live somewhere near?" I asked, and she feebly lifted a thin arm to point back the way I had come.

"Stay here," I said, and hurried down the street to a well lit deli which was just closing. I knocked on the door, and a man wearing an apron came over to the glass doors.

"Yes?" he yelled, muffled through the thick glass.

"Theres a woman down the street, I think shes hurt. Could you call the police?"

He opened the door a crack, peering where I pointed into the blackness. The womans form was just barely visible in the dark.

"She hurt bad?" he said.

"No, I think she just needs some help. Call the police, would you?"

He went back inside and I saw him dialing. In about three minutes a low blue car crept around the corner and pinned its lights on her. I watched as the two officers got out and talked to her, then into their radios, before I decided she would be ok and continued on, eventually reaching the building.

The lightbulb in our hallway flickered as I opened the door to the warm dark of the apartment. I crept in quietly so as not to wake Sarah. Feeling my way into the bedroom, I switched on the nightlight her mother had given her. She lay stretched out, the covers rumpled and thrown back.

The phone dangled off its receiver. It must have been beeping all night I thought, moving it tenderly out from under her hand. I placed it silently on its base. She looked even worse than she had last night. I felt her wrist, and put my hand on her head. She stirred slightly, murmuring in her sleep. Her forehead felt cold and clammy. I lifted the covers over her, and decided I would call a doctor for her tomorrow for sure. The day at work must have drained her, she shouldn't have gone.

Sitting up with her that long night, which seemed to stretch on and on... its another strong moment which I remember with clarity. I realized that night the strength of my emotions. I knew then that if Sarah wanted to, I would marry her, be with her forever. Caring for someone who is ill brings on a strange clairvoyance, even if it is rooted in delusion. For an instant, a surge of feeling, a recognition of another dimension of life in which we all exist appears. It connects us with history, all the times that existed from old, and all the times that will ever exist.

She didn't go to work all that week. I called the doctor on tuesday, and he dropped by, took her temperature and pulse, checked her tongue.

"Shes all right, possibly some bad food," he said. I kept my mouth closed, holding back my tendency to worry too much.

"Give her plenty of fluids, keep her warm," he said, writing out a prescription for diuretics. He also left a bottle of strong multivitamins with minerals to replace what she lost.

I worked half-days the rest of the week. Jerry hadn't been showing up either. I talked to Ed, my co-press operator, and got Jerrys phone number. If the stats and layouts weren't there, we couldn't work. It was a problem of the top-down organization. Lose touch with your immediate superior, and you and everyone under you were instantly abandoned in the desert of infinite confusion. I called him up, but the line was busy. "Screw this," I told Ed. "I've got to go. You cover for me?"

Ed was a good guy, somewhat of a loner. "Sure, man. Go." he said. I ran home, past an ambulance that had pulled up, administering life support, mechanical sucking machines and breathing pumps hooked up to another street wino.

Sarah was feeling a little better by the end of the week, and Id decided to treat her to a vacation for the weekend, out of the city.

"Oh, Dean, you didn't have to," she said, smiling, when I showed her the reservations for a cabin retreat an hours trainride to the north. "Ill bring my paints with me."

Woodlands was a place wed gone to when we first met. It was a nice idyllic location right near some suburbs, but you couldn't tell, since it was hidden in a private valley with a brook and running streams. I was happy, seeing that she knew how much it meant to me, and also the reciprocation in her eyes.

That evening, I went by work to see if Jerry was there, so I could tell him I wouldn't be able to make the late sunday shift. I tried calling, but the phone had been busy for hours.

The place seemed deserted, and I wandered through the eerie labyrinthine corridors, past the silent machines to Jerry's office door. The light was on.

"Jerry," I called, pushing open the door. He was there, sitting at his desk. Actually, it was more like he was being supported by it. He was on the phone again, but his eyes were blank, his face lax and unfocused.

"Jerry?" I said, moving closer to him, but he didn't even blink. That's when I noticed the drool, leaking from the swollen flesh of his drooping mouth.

"Jerry," I spoke again, louder, waving my hands in front of his eyes. He didn't even respond. Fearful now, confronted with such a strange sight, I pulled the receiver away from his ear and put it to mine.

"Hello?" I said into the silent instrument, but there was no answer. Listening closer, I heard sounds begin to emerge from the handset. Munching, slurping noises, noises of big lips sucking oily flesh. I quickly hung up, my heart pounding, afraid. Once more, I forced myself to put my hands on jerry and shake him awake, but it was no use. He slumped forward, dead to the world. I backed out of the room and left, afraid, not turning around until I was back home.

The next morning I quickly packed everything up for the trip, got Sarah up and out the door. We caught the seven-thirty train. I remember being in a state of mental turmoil. I wasn't communicating correctly, Id stopped letting things out. I held them in.

Id left Jerry as I found him. Denial? Certainly. I only cared about my own emotional sanity, and Sarah.

I watched the landscape fly by, the buildings lessen, until eventually they disappeared into trees. Sarah napped on my shoulder. She looked so thin and pale in the morning sun, I wrapped her in my coat and held her tightly. When she awoke, she was snappy, annoyed, but I attributed it to her illness.

Eventually we made it to the cabin and relaxed. I put a chaise lounge out on the deck, and wrapped her in a comforter.

"Dean... its so beautiful here. Lets move out of the city," she said, gazing over the beautiful scene, taking in the small stream and dense forest bed. Her earlier discomfort seemed to dissipate into the raw nature. I held her hand, stroking her hair, wishing she would get better soon.

When the sun rose high enough to shine through the tree tops down on us, I daydreamed about our future together. Perhaps we would go out west, where it was much more relaxed, and where nature wasn't metered out by the square inch. In that setting, that time, it all seemed so possible.

Later in the afternoon, after the people had brought us a wonderful lunch of soup and sandwiches, which Sarah only ate half of, she asked me to bring her paints out.

"What are you going to paint?" I asked her, handing her the small kit I had bought her for her birthday two years ago. She took the canvas out of my hand and placed it in front of her, the palette on her lap.

"You," she said, smiling at me.

I sat for her the rest of the afternoon, enjoying the warmth and the smells which the sun baked out of the earth. I must have dozed off, for I woke up just as it was getting dark and chilly. Sarah had gone inside, I didn't see the canvas anywhere.

That night, Sarah got a lot worse. She wouldn't let me turn on the light in the room, she said her eyes hurt. I had a hard time sleeping. Tossing and turning, the nightmares of the city flooded my brain, forcing my eyes open against my will. The dark ceiling filled with movements and fear. Listening to Sarahs weak, labored breathing, I knew how closely linked my fear was to her health, her tenuous survival.

After the restless night, I woke to Sarahs coughing. It was a weak dry heave that didn't sound good at all. I walked down to the managers cabin, and asked if there was a doctor around. Mrs. Whitterly, the old grey-haired bookkeeper, told me shed send him around when he arrived later that noon.

The cold quiche and juice was delicious, but I couldn't enjoy it. Sarah wouldn't leave her room, she only wanted to rest, she said. I peeked in on her once at about twelve. She was sitting up in bed, painting, but she quickly whipped it behind her when she saw me.

I smiled at her childishness. It made me feel that our fates were connected, intertwined together. I waited for the doctor on the porch. Was this what it would be like when we were old, waiting on each others doctor? I fervently hoped so. Sarah was my purpose in life, my goal and dream.

When he arrived, I took him into Sarahs dark room. She was sitting up at the dresser looking thin and pale, the big dark bags around her eyes creating a skull-like mask.

"No, no," she insisted to the doctor. "I'm fine. Just, I just need a little sleep. That's all," she tossed her head back, managing a laugh. I could tell it wore her out, creating that smile, that toss.

"I'm afraid I must insist, at least let me check in on you later tonight," the man said, putting his instruments back in his case. Sarah looked put off, but I consoled her.

She slept the rest of the afternoon and into the evening. I wandered around the cabin, discontented. I hadn't expected to vacation with a corpse.

Even then, my fear was beginning to congeal into a sense of morbidity I hadn't experienced before. If I could have, I would have left then, perhaps it would have been better to become hardened against my emotions. But they give me hope now, they help me forget. When memories become named as memories, they are pushed to a special place in the mind, a place that doesn't interfere with day-to-day existence.

The afternoon of the day we were to head back, she gave me the painting. It was painted in bright, spring colors, straight from the tube. Two roughly drawn figures, one with my face, the other with her hair, stood in front of a huge lush mountain landscape holding hands. The road they were on stretched up the mountain, into the infinite expanse of bright blue sky. Off to one side, she had painted a beautiful castle, decorated with many-colored flags. The moon and stars shone through a darkened strip of sky along the top of the canvas. I packed it up with the other things we had brought, and knocked on her door.

"Sarah? ready to go?" The door opened, and she walked out unsteadily. I offered her my arm, but she brushed it away, annoyed.

We didn't speak the entire ride back. In the apartment again, she moved into the bedroom and shut the door. The void in my heart opened up, and the sadness flowed out. I called up work on the kitchen phone, but it just rang and rang. I needed to get out, clear my mind, find the strength to go on when my world was falling apart around me.

Evening had fallen, and I walked down the street to the little park that was just around the corner. The city seemed deserted. I sat on a bench, trying to think of nothing, to relax. Why was Sarah so moody lately? It must be the illness. The thought occurred to me that Julie hadn't called lately, that maybe I should get in touch, let her know her friend was sick.

I spotted a payphone at the edge of the park and walked over to it. Reaching for the receiver, I suddenly drew back, aghast. It was dangling down, into some bushes that grew below. In the bushes, a man lay, dressed in a suit and tie, his hand still clenching the handset tightly. His face was a horrid, pasty white, a desiccated husk of what had once been human. I turned and ran.

I don't remember much after that, the blur of images fueled by panic. Opening the door of the bedroom, what had once been our bedroom, seeing Sarah's evaporated shell lying dead, broken on the bed, the phone still held tightly to her ear... trying to call the police, her mother in arkansas, anybody... but the phones were dead. Only an empty static, a vastness filled with quiet whispers and immeasurable distance, reached out to me. I pulled myself away from the sound. Straining with incredible strength, helped by my fear boiling up from its unknown pit, obliterating consciousness, obeying only its timeless master, I thrust the vile thing upon the floor, crushing it in a frenzied destruction of lamp and boot.

I quickly threw together a few things, that's when I must have grabbed the painting, some snapshots, all that I have with me now. I did not look back when I closed the door behind me, burying the past in the coffin of 3-G.

Outside, the city was a mess, a confusion of accidents, of slow-moving people with dark, baggy eyes and pale complexion, unseeing, directionless. Now that I had become aware, I could spot the tendencies everywhere, as people tried to continue on in their daily lives. Cars ground to a halt at intersections, the light changing to red, to green, to red again. Pedestrians slowed down, caught in the middle of crossing the street by an invisible magnetic pull, rooting them. But the worst were the husks, sucked of life, collapsed near phone-booths, with cell-phones in hand, on benches they clambered onto with the last strength in their failing bodies.

On the train north only a few people were aboard. Even the engineer pushed the train extra-slowly, everyone was white-faced and frail, as if a plague had descended upon the world. In Ternsburg, the farthest north the line went, the train stopped. People gathered at the doors, standing like zombies waiting for eternity, but they wouldn't open.

I ran up to the engineers booth, and found him slumped over his controls, barely breathing. I punched the button labeled doors, and the pneumatic whoosh echoed down the long, empty train. Ducking out onto a platform that was still, deserted, devoid of anything, I avoided the slow shuffle of the remnants of the crowd which trickled out of the train behind me.

There was a car in the lot, a young suburban housewife slumped over the wheel, one hand on a cell-phone. I pulled her out; no-one cared, no one tried to stop me. They wandered around as if in a thick fog, stopping when they bumped into a tree, standing, waiting for it to move.

It was a nice Mercedes, but I had to stop for gas frequently. Sometimes the computerized pumps wouldn't work, and I had to pull the collapsed attendant with the phone tightly grasped in his fist away from the counter, pushing at random buttons until it worked.

The stores were a mess. Scattered trails of food, broken wrappers and growling dogs scavenging amongst the insect shells of people, barely recognizable. I stopped when I saw a gun shop, but it had been stripped. In the back room, a desiccated husk of a man lay gripping a shotgun in one hand, the phone in the other, a look of pure blankness etched on his face. Two young people lay on the floor, dead, holes in their chests leaking dried, clotted blood and tissue. I found a couple knives, pried the mans gun from his hand and pocketed a few boxes of shells.

Farther north, into Massachusetts and New Hampshire, I met people who were unaffected, like me, but I kept to myself. I was sure they wouldn't believe me, I was sure they wouldn't listen... I shouldn't have listened to myself then, I wasn't thinking right in my head. Maybe if I had acted differently, I wouldn't be alone now. But the past is that which has already happened, not that which listens to maybes.

The man in the blue coat comes to mind, also, in this long stillness. Who was he? I may never know. Was he the first, the only? Did he exist only as a figment of my heated brain, a broken identification with the beginning of the end of my dream-times? I am still unsure of anything.

The long trip up here to Vermont convinced me of how large an area had become affected. I don't know if it has spread, or if it was all a massive break with reality. I talk to no one. It has been almost four years now, as well as I can tell the time.

The winters are harsh, the summers have been beautiful, the food is abundant. I'm glad that the city is behind me now, i'm glad I don't live there anymore. Is the country safe? I don't know. Its a rough lifestyle. And even though civilization may eventually reach me, it's still a large enough world that's hidden out there for my lifetime.

For all the nervous, paranoid doubt that has become my life, I still have one thing that sustains me, that gives me hope.

I know Ill never have a phone.