She joined the exodus. First the train, then a bus, commandeered with breathless speed by a driver crazed with fear. Midway through the journey, they stopped at a makeshift encampment and she realized she had forgotten to take the thick sleeping bag she had laid out right before the journey. She walked about restless and cold, trying to find a comfortable spot in the abandoned shell of a semi full of spilled broccoli heads. In the morning she set back for the sleeping bag but stopped in a clearing of tall pines, arrested by the tranquil beauty. A man who lived there said:

“Why meet the end of the world there when you can do it here?”

At once she decided to stay in the valley of the pines and meet the inevitable, unstoppable current of fate without fear. She kissed the young man, shyly at first, then ever more eagerly as the erotic plea of life tightened around their disintegrating bodies.