i.
Carmelita discovered that the most intimate moment rendered to humankind was dying with someone. In final, staggering breaths, the euphoria of knowing another living thing was being extinguished so close, so beautifully concrete - the very thought was beyond any orgasm she had ever known.
She quivered, unsure if it was from her injuries or the cold delight that washed over her upon the revelation of mortality. The man next to her was still wheezing. They had met only a half hour ago, and now they shared the most furtive and irretrievable of human experiences. Blood from his nose dribbled down onto his collar. Another wheeze splattered flowered patterns of red onto Carmelita's blouse, which had just been starched and bleached to perfection a few days ago.
Through the haze of firing synapses and failing intellect, she fled away from the conflagratory wreckage of the present, fled away from her crippled vessel and death-drunk delirium, fled, as lithe as a fox over snow, to 1973 and a stony beach front on the southwestern coast of Spain.
She quivered, unsure if it was from her injuries or the cold delight that washed over her upon the revelation of mortality. The man next to her was still wheezing. They had met only a half hour ago, and now they shared the most furtive and irretrievable of human experiences. Blood from his nose dribbled down onto his collar. Another wheeze splattered flowered patterns of red onto Carmelita's blouse, which had just been starched and bleached to perfection a few days ago.
Through the haze of firing synapses and failing intellect, she fled away from the conflagratory wreckage of the present, fled away from her crippled vessel and death-drunk delirium, fled, as lithe as a fox over snow, to 1973 and a stony beach front on the southwestern coast of Spain.