The water drops on the car window showed a tiny upside-down world. Telephone poles flashed in front of the corn-rowed sky, and where the ground should have been, was only gray space. How could one be sure one wasn’t going to fall away, with nothing but the clouds to break one’s descent? What were the laws of physics to the will of the gods, in this world?

Today was a day of returning, of re-acquaintance with the life which was earnestly left only nine days ago. Tomorrow would be a day of: waking in the familiar bedroom, driving Mother to work before driving to school, staying up late to make up religion and physics tests, picking Mother up from work, attempting supper from the fridge, remembering the past nine days.

Nine days of adulthood, or what adulthood is imagined to be by dependent children. Nine days, anyway, of something which was painful to leave.

The melancholy of past plans for self harm was experienced again as it had not for years. Was this phase not over? Time seems to be making a loop. A raised hand—a furrowed brow—“But I know what happens in this story.”

The sprinkle of rain at the airport increased on the drive home. The windshield wipers began to cross furiously, and the water drops on the passenger window multiplied and ran together. Soon the view was not of tiny upside-down worlds but of the distorted horizon in grays and greens. A turn and then the crunch and occasional ping of gravel underneath. The porch light is on. Open the car door, step out; the rain continues and the gods are understood to be unsympathetic to a pathetic appearance.

Is life a series of experiences to be related to a semi-attentive audience by way of amusing anecdotes? Is life worth living only in its dramatization? I hope not.