She was the stunning blonde in the black leotard that haunted Lit. 202 and she had eyes she could outstare the stars with. She, Emerald, walked with me through the dark to a café with a Russian name. She wasn’t speaking, just opening an orange she had brought with her and tossing the peelings aside as she walked.

“It’s not littering,” she said, “if it originally came from the earth anyway.”

“What didn’t originally come from the earth?” I countered.

“Oh, touché,” she said with a vicious smile.

When we finally arrived there, I asked what she planned to do.

“Keep you here until this little eggshell breaks,” she said.

I laughed, “you mean morning?”

She looked at me sternly. “No, I mean death.”