• Lizzie rides her bike.

    The late summer air on her face is damp, saturated with the stink of the earth. She awoke to the sound of raindrops spattering on the tin roof of her home, sliding in near silence down the windows of her bedroom, spreading into thin slivers of gray on her windowsill. Now the humidity is like a pillow pressing against her, suffocating her despite the speed her bike is allowing her to achieve. The speed is intoxicating. It's like the wine her mother let her sip last Christmas. It's bitter, too.

    She takes the corner too fast, nearly collides with Mr. Atkinson on his way home from the General Store. He side-steps out of her way, dropping one of his grocery bags. A can of cream corn rolls across the sidewalk into the gutter. He stares at her for a moment, and she can feel his eyes on her back even after her momentum has taken her yards beyond him, past the General Store, past the florist, past the Post Office.

    She crosses the street without slowing down. Mrs. Mendez, forty-eight and still darkly beautiful, honks her horn in warning. Lizzie never slows. She likes the sensation of moving, of going somewhere. Of escaping.

    Beyond the Post Office is the park. She finally presses the hand break, slowing to a crawl and then a stop. She leans her bike against a tree. Approaches the gray turf and rusting playground equipment like a soldier going to battle. The swings are still on this windless day. It's too uncomfortable outside for any other kids to brave the ride here. Every mom in town is in front of every stove in town, waiting for the water to boil, worrying about the electric bill and the effect the television is having on their children. It's nearly five o'clock.

    Lizzie shuffles towards the slide. The slide has always been her favorite. She knows she's getting too old for it--she's nearly nine. It's for babies, isn't it? But she's always loved it. Once a week ever since she can remember (stretching far back into the shadows of her memory, past the lightning flash that was today) her mother has packed Lizzie and her little brother into the family van and driven the three or four miles to the park, as a special treat for being good. Her mother read novels at the picnic bench while Joseph ran in endless, pointless circles, happy just to be in the open air and in motion, and Lizzie--

    Lizzie likes the slide. The slide is her favorite.

    She likes the anticipation of climbing its worn metal steps (she's taking them two at a time, her hands tense claws on the rail). She likes the victory of being at the top (she glances down at the brown grass, twelve feet below, and wonders what it would be like to climb over the edge, drop that seemingly incalculable distance). She likes.

    She likes the speed.

    She's free-falling now, the metal catching at her bare legs thrust out in front of her, and ground rushing towards her. She's sliding.

    At the bottom, after the exhiliration of going down fades, she covers her face with her dirty hands and weeps until her skin burns and her head aches.

    Her mother died today.