On December 19, 1934, in a grave plot in New Petersburg, Virginland, James laid his head against Adele's grave. His eyes were vacant, rain running down his numb cheeks. Hundreds of brief images of how she was when he left her less than a months ago faded in and out. He started down at the grave, imagining what she must have looked like, what any body would look like laying in the cold ground, horizontal. He remembered her eyes, her complex blue eyes, but the image was already fading. 

There must have been some photographs or a videofilm of her somewhere. He had nothing but a lock of her hair that she cut off in her pride when he had to leave. It was in his case at the house that he grew up in. But there was nothing that would revive the exact look of her eyes. The detail of the smoothness of her skin. It was buried there with her in the ground. 

He ached to be able to see her corpse. Anything. He had been too late. His mother told him that she was beautiful in the casket. She said it had been strange because she looked so alive, as if her soul would not leave the body even when the organism would not run.

They hadn't installed her vidstone yet. He was glad. He wasn't ready to face the rain that would have beaded on the surface of cut granite and glass monitor. 

He looked up at the sky, wondered what he could have done differently. If he could have forseen the future, maybe he would have been able to here, will her to live. Somehow wrap his arms around the death rushing headlong toward her, divert it, if he had known what was going on.

There was a meniscus of fog arching over the grave yard, filled with the the overhead gaslight's glow. Shadows diffused in the fog. 

He looked over at the grave. It seemed to invert, sliding into the earth. He was home. 

A loaf of bannana bread sat on the simple country table before him. Adele had baked it for him. James was staring at the loaf, gnashing his teeth against intense hunger. It would be the only thing he had eaten in two days. It smelled like her. 

He remembered how she'd been standing behind the kitchen counter in the church. He was standing outside, in the hall, walking past, towards the choir room. Adele called out to him. They had talked for a little while, like they often did after church on Sunday mornings. She had said, "My grandmother taught me how to make banana bread, one of the only times she would talk to me is in the kitchen. I wasn't her favorite daughter, too much sass she'd say. She'd run me around the kitchen, grabbing bowls, ingredients, or she'd run me down to the store to buy some vanilla. But I learned it. I learned it good from getting all those ingredients." 

"I can't imagine that you actually waited on your own grandmother. I'll bet you were more trouble than you were worth," said James.

"Hell yeah I was. Still am. But the food she cooked, you'd have stayed too. Something special. Brought me and her together, and more than that. I was thinking of making a batch, if you could just get me a pound of flour, I'd be glad to make you a loaf. And if you don't, i'm gluing the bottom of your sunday shoes together," Adele said, and smiled at him, showing her teeth. 

"Oh that'll be a shame," James said, taking a step closer to her. 

"You'd be sadder than you think. Ain't like you'd be replacing them easily, you know. I mean I think you'll have a hard time getting the flour."

"Honestly, Adele. I'll get you the flour. You want me to bring it to your house?" He grinned. 

"Well, yeah, I do, unless you want that loaf next Monday. I'd be suprised to be alive by next Monday."

"Wait, what do you mean, be alive next Monday? You're not sick or something are you?" 

"No, of course not. Do I look sick to you?" She held her hands above her head like a ballerina and piroutted behind the counter in front of him. He could only see the upper half of her body above the counter, but he was glad enough that he couldn't have seen the lower half. He was half mad with what he could see. "It's just that I'm suprised to wake up every day, suprised that I got some kind of future."

"Oh, I can see what you're saying. Adele, let me tell you something. I will get you a bag of flour. I'll bring it to your house as soon as I can get the money. And you don't have to bake me any bread with it, though I would accept it if you do. And I love - loved talking with you today." His cheeks flushed and he quickly stepped around the corner, heart pounding in his chest. It suprised him that he would react to her that way, but it had happened quiet often with her. He wondered what it meant, wondered why he couldn't control himself better. 

Monday morning, he walked through the front door of his parents house early, into the street. The bright sun bore down on him. As he walked down the street, he noticed the soup kitchens that were just opening up for the day, lines already wrapped around whole city blocks.

There were so many men waiting at the market for work, hopeful looks on hard, time worn faces. He thought about how much everyone had aged in the last year. He knew most of these guys, some he had grown up with, gone to school with, some that were older than he was, still there waiting. He couldn't imagine himself standing at this same market when he was older. It made him burn to go out to one of the bording schools or colleges. He would be able to know then, what the universe was made of. He would be able to grasp the truths, the inexorable laws that governed the motion of objects. He would be able to study some science. He would be able to walk into a cool labrotory, fresh off the streets of Petersburg. 

But today, he had to get a pound of flour. And perhaps enough money to scrape some food together for his mother and father. 

Shop keepers and farmers came to the market shouting out what work they needed done that day. A few of the men talked to the owners and farmers, and haggled over day wages. James couldn't seem to push to the front of the crowd. He smelled failure in the air. He couldn't bring himself to keep people behind him back, as they surged forward. He couldn't find within himself the steel to step on the backs of these people who were so unfortunate, and already so beneath him. He wondered what was going through thier minds, what hunger drove each of them, whether they felt anything at all, whether he and Adele were alone in the universe. Whether they were the single fire in an infinity of ice. People surged past him. He stood still. 

He shook his head with the memory, still sitting there at the simple table. The bread pleaded with his nose. Eat me. But not one speck of the flour in that loaf was his. Not any at all. The gap between nothing and a little bit yawned so large. The first rung of the ladder grew, stretching out of reach.

He wanted to reach out and crush the loaf, tear every fiber of the grain apart. He reached out his hand, sunk his fingers into the shell of the crust. He tore a peice off. He watched a tear absorb into the bread before he stuffed it into his mouth. It was completely absent of taste, only raw hunger. 

He tore off another piece, and then another, shoving them nearly down his throat in his burning haste. He had to save it for tomorrow. What if she needed it after all? 

He hit himself, mouth full of the bread, hit himself in the temple. Then again. The shock of the pain clenched his jaw, bread clinging to the inside of his teeth, but he knew he had control. He put his head in his hands, and slowly chewed and swallowed, feeling the pain in his skull. 

"James, come here," said his father, from what was once the parlor, but was now Jame's father's bedroom. It scared James badly, he hadn't considered that his father was listening to the scene. He had the sense that his father had seen all the memory, been part of everything that was going on in his head, and it deeply embarrased him that he had not been more careful.

"Yes, dad. What's wrong?" 

"I smelled the bread. Did someone make it for you? Was it Adele?" 

James wished he could hide the smell. His stomach grumbled as he walked into his father's room, bread swishing around in his long empty belly like breeding salmon. 

"Dad, I just bought it out at the market." He walked into the dimly lit room. His father was sitting on a couch, barely outlined in the shades-drawn glimmer. 

"Well, son, I know that I've failed to teach you the importance of a decent lie. Probably too late now. But Adele made that loaf. I would like a tiny sample. I am not hungry, son, that's too much. Don't be upset. It's necessary for me to know what is going on between you." He slid the sliver into his mouth.

His father's silhouette stiffened. James watched his eyes go a little wild. Then his father seemed to focus all his attention onto the few molecules bouncing around in his mouth. 

"I know dad." 

"That's very lovingly made bread, wouldn't you say." 

"I know," said James. 

"Of course you do. What are you going to do for work, son?" 

"Dad, I've been thinking about moving north, there's nothing here. I could join the triple C lottery, and just go wherever they send me." said James. 

"I'd hate to see you go, and you know I need you around. But if you're determined about this." 

"What else should I do? I think I might love her dad." 

"Now, I know what this sounds like, but just... what if you did go north, but you just kept on going. What if you just didn't come back. I know that a father isn't supposed to say that kind of thing to his son, but the world is ending, you know. It would be terrible for her if you married now." 

"Dad, dad. Stop. Look," James paused, attempting to figure out how to let his dad help him with his plans, or give him a magic answer that would allow him to stay home while avoiding the apocalyptic thing his father had taken great pains to talk about in the last few months. 

There was a train coming down the tracks through the morning fog. It was so far off, but it smelled like desperation to James. 

He was waiting under a cedar by the northbound train, about a mile outside of the city. He was crouched low, under the branches of the lone tree, where it stood fifty yards from the forest behind it, off the sloping gravel that led up to the tracks. He wondered if there was a difference in what train he should take. He wondered if he would be able to hold on as the train pulled past him. He wondered how much longer he would be able to survive without food. 

He could feel the low rumble from where he sat on the frosted grass. A thrill ran through his body. He crushed it as hard as he could. He couldn't tell whether it was because of the chill in the air or because, and he hated himself for thinking the thought, that he was having fun. The rumbling he could feel through the ground was exhilirating. He should have been wracking himself, torn between love and money. But he was not. He was thrilled to be alive, crouching there, waiting for the train to roll by, pulling out the slack. 

It burst into view, the engine pouring steam into the growing morning mist, the gears and wheels churning into a building momentum. He could see the gaslights of the city dimming, winking off, in the distance. 

As the train rolled by, he could see a silhouette climbing up the grain gondolas. He wasn't the only one who had the same idea as him. He watched how the body was holding onto a ladder on one of the grain gondolas. He could see the body being pulled, straining up the railing. It looked as if the man was going to lose his legs in one of the giant steel wheels, like the man could not get a footing. Then he was up on the little platform, and crawling inside through some kind of aperture. 

This train must have been from the south, it was full of wheat, rice, and, from the smell of it, tobacco. It made his mouth water, and his stomach tighten. He wanted to be in it. He scooted out, crawling on all fours, bag tied on his back. He ran across the crunchy ground, up the slope of gravel, and up to the train. It wasn't moving fast, and he ran beside it, throwing his arms out, and catching one of the ladders he saw the other guy catch. The metal bit into his hands, since he didn't have any gloves, he could feel the thick coating of rust and metal burs. But he was holding on, it was pulling him, and wildly, he was off. 

He managed to get his feet on the platform with no problem, and was looking up into a crawlspace, must have been where the other guy had crawled, many cars ahead of him. He made sure nobody else was in the car, before crawling out to the middle, and watching the sky lighten above him. He was lying on boxes and boxes of something. He had hoped it would be grain, and he would eat it. He woundered if the train was going to stop in Richmond. Visions of men beating him. There were laws. There was a woman who he didn't understand but who he loved back there, waiting for a pound of flour, or for a slow death, or both. The whole world was behind him, and he felt a wave of sheer freedom crash through his veins, pushing at his heart, shaming him with it's pressure and intensity. 

He would have to get off in Richmond. He hoped the damn thing would stop. He hoped it wouldn't. He slapped himself gently across the face. He would have to figure out what he was doing, where he was going to go, where he would be able to make a dollar. The world seemed to call to him, suddenly, as if the sky was a song, and the whole globe was open, and just waiting for him to come find it. 

He poked his head over the edge of the wall, an hour later, looking ahead of the train. He hoped it was going north, but he couldn't tell, and he didn't know if they had passed Richmond or not. He had fallen asleep, with the screaming roar of the train, and woken up to the demon cry of another train going the other way. It peirced into his brain like a spike, it scared him badly. 

And how had she died? He had the viddygram in his hand, that was one possibility, he knew what he was told. He could hear the tiny gears purr to life as he cranked the tiny wheel on the side with his thumb to bring the message back to life. He'd recieved it not one week after debarking from the train he'd ridden north. He was sitting in a train, a passenger train, thundering southward. As he replayed the viddy again, his panic began to wear him out. He couldn't effectively reason with himself, and he could feel his brain giving out, sliding downward towards sleep. Yet he gathered himself, and held his eyes open. 

A face came up on the screen. It was almost impossible to tell who it was, just that it was a young man in, sitting in a livingroom, the light coming from behind him, casting him in shadow. 

"I'm sorry you have to recieve this message like this, but you need to know as soon as possible. I know there's not going to be much connection where you are at the way things are these days, everything has declined so much. But I thought you of all people had to know, even if it had to be delivered by horse or train. 

Adele, well, Adele is not well, and will probably no longer be among the living when you recieve this. You should not rush home. You should stay there, wherever you are if you have a job, and send money home to your folks. Christ knows your daddy needs it. 

I know you loved her, and she loved you as much as someone as crushed as she was could love anyone. It's just that the truth wa -" and here, the video went too scratched to hear. 

"Of the streets. There's was nothing she could do to avoid the situation. Her parents were only acting in the interest of the total family. That's what they were thinking. There's no way they could have known what would happen. There's no way to excuse the situation. I just wanted you to know as soon as possible. She will be buried on December 19. That's as long as they can keep her body in chryo-stasis.

James, do what you think is right." 

He tired to hold back the sob that was building in his chest. It was right there, but he couldn't wquite mentalize it, he could only feel. There was supposed to be an ice that would keep him whole, something that would hold back the flood. But there was nothing for him, only a vast plane of death, stretching outside the windows of the train, peeling back the steam that curled around the windows, yawning like the vacuum of space. 

He felt himself teetering on the edge of sanity, and felt himself closing off, felt the interior of a suffocating room, where all the oxygen was being sucked out. He fell to the floor, on his knees, between the seats in his car. There was no one else in the train, no one noticed him lying on the floor. 

He had no idea how long he laid there, waiting for something more to happen. He put his hands up around his head, scratching his scalp over and over again, shaking on the floor. He knew there would be more blood from this death, if she was really dead. He was certain, but he couldn't help but feeling that he would get back and she would greet him in the station and everything would be allright. Nothing would be wrong, the universe would fall back into place like setting the bone. 

The ticketing agent must have seen him lying in the aisle, and hadn't wanted any part of his obvious misery, because no one walked through the car. Eventually, he got up. He wanted a shot of whiskey. He knew he couldn't afford it. Still, he rose from the floor, and sat down on the velvet upholstered chair, holding his rubbery muscles together. 

What am I going to do with myself? What did she die of? I am sitting here in my chair wondering these same questions. I can't figure out what is driving this James character? Is it some kind of strange pride that he would consider coming back? I think I might just leave things as they are, I mean, it's not like the two are really bound together by any tangible thing such as children. And yet, the less there is to bind a certain kind of man, the more he binds himself to the object of his desire.