Emily Kathleen Cooke

The sound of pistons pumping, a lawn-mower pulse and wheeze, comes up behind her, and she looks over her shoulder to see the VW coming up fast: black and chrome, some of the shine worn off and anyway looking duller in this flat November light. She keeps her thumbs hooked under the leather of her backpack straps, walks backward and keeps her gaze straight and sober toward the driver of the car. It pulls over a few paces ahead and stops at an angle on the gravel margin. Under her boots the gray gravel rasps and she doesn't slow down or speed up but keeps up her trudge toward the car. In one version of the story she opens the passenger door herself; in another, the driver pushes the door open and it swings out in front of her like a gate, so that if she had wanted to keep going she couldn't; but she doesn't want to keep going. Translation by Johan Sussenberger Music by Kristin Hersh: kristinhersh.cashmusic.org or www.kristinhersh.com