He kept telling me we would be grid to grad soon. He kept telling me we would be grid to grad real. I suspect he kept a watch down that well, for he kept telling me he’d be good to say, “We can go now”. Whatever, this was the only chance I was going to get at escaping this escapade for real. What do you think I was going to do? I had two no three no four no five options. The first, to run and hope his gun diddly gun didn’t have some fun; the second, the best if not the worst if not the one in the middle between worst and best, was to stay put and go along with this whole thing; the third, which was certainly not the fourth thing that came to my head – though may well have been the fifth, had I not stopped short of five after deciding to run after the fourth – was to try and grab his gun and kill him first; the fourth was to tell the others about his plans, my intentions, and the way things were going to go down if I didn’t do something; the fifth was perhaps the best option, but I never got to it, because, as the sun was setting pretty soon – soon enough to be grid to grad – I decided on the first option, to run, and run fast. And run fast I did, chasing up and down and back and forth along the grid he had laid out for us to flank, pillage and finally capture as part of his game, as part of his insane game, which had turned very suddenly into something very real, not very friendly at all but rather very deadly. And my run, meandering in and out of this mess, made my heart leap up and down, which, combined with the memories of the heavy throbbing of my loins the night before as my thing lay inside her, his wife, his sister and his wife, caused the sun in all its intensity to beckon me. It beckoned me, for it was surely the last time I’d see it. But her. Again, her, desperate maiden of despair, reaching out to me, telling me things I did not wish to hear, between the rhythmic panting in line with my chest, in line with her breast, as we lay in the sheets of harmony, my hips thrusting away the bruises he’d given her fine ribs, the ribs which arched inward as her back arced upwards, pressing her nipples up into my sternum. But last night is gone, as you know, as you run with me, along the grid, to graduate into freedom once more and away from his grasp. Are you her, or am I you? This infestation of mind-numbing neuroses like little ants crawling through my forehead makes the sweat flood down my cheeks, my nose, my lips and my back – oh, my back, he groaned, taking the whip like a man, even though he was receiving it because he wanted to be a woman. She had helped him, through and through this they had become one. In her absence, he became her. For that was the way things went in times of war. He caught me, fetched me up, whipped me in front of the others, where I lie now, under the moon, the sun, the stars and clouds and sea of air. Frantically searching the night.