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She calmed down ,a little. Money would get her what she

'needed. It ,can do .tha t for people. Just tiny little slips

or paper with pictures of dead men printed on the front.

'They're ·eye'rywhere. Supposedly, th-ey're worth something. And

they can .fixa-nything.

Louise 'to·s·sedaway her cigarette. Then she ran over,

pickeqit up, threw it -away in the trash can placed several

feet away from her, found the nearest store and pushed

open,'.no, shit, wait a minute. Louise pushed harder. She

almost cried. Not because of the door, never because of the

door. If Louise had cried, it would hav~ been 'about her

li'fe, .the post traumas and present disorder, really, one

,coul~ s6ppose, the dying,parts more thananythi~g else. But

she didn't cry. She took a breath, looked at the door, and

pull~d the,glass open.

She went; inside, and' the door closed behind her. Louise

stood there for a moment and looked behind her. Outside,

she 'couldsee the wind through the grasses and the leaves.

She, tried tb, follow it. For a second, she thought she could

almost see it. But she didn't.

She turned back around. There was none of that in the

store: Only a cold, sterile feeling that proclaimed man was

here, man made this. The air had transubstantiated into a

heavy kind of'cool. Which was strange, Louise thought. She

had felt muggy heats, she had taken showers, but she had

never felt a humid chill. Looking at the floors, tiled with

white and pastel greens: Louise got the sensation that~ she

'had just been doused in lemon-lime soda. It gaye Louise

goose bumps. It also left her feeling slightly sticky.

When people marvel at nature,it's usually because they

think it's very beautiful or very big, or most of the time

a combination of the two that both words only kind of fit.

People can sit underneath a tree, out in the open, or even

on top and fall face first into astonishment. One can do

the same thihg ina s.to re ,:t oo'. Although orie has to check

f~rstickypatches instead of pointy rocks, the ~eeling is

pretty 'much the same. My god, they think to themsel~es, an ,

arm'<a.round their sweethearts and a hand over their eyes. l-i6:w

'could anybody do th'is? '

B'ut it wasn't' just the visible proof of man's power' that

,floored Louise. Nor was ,it gravity. Something out ,of sorts

~as still inside of Louise, half conscious, sleeping off a

sickness and turning in the sheets,' burning fever/dreams

'and"'~ery close to bU,r·sting.Louise haLf+b eLi.eve d she hadn 't

woken up today, that behind everything, Louise was dreaming

in bed. Through her clothes and under the air conditioning

was actually her bare body wrapped up in, sheets. And above

the colors, over the forms and beyonci"the lights were closed

eyelids. And, she imagined, everything Louise heard was only