QUOTE : I slumped in my seat, pierced by sunlight magnified by the windshield glass. What was I fighting? Everything. I was fighting where I was, who I was, where I was going. I’ll be here now, I thought. I’ll be here, not moving, going nowhere in gridlock on the Santa Monica Freeway. My heartbeat slowed, my muscles relaxed, and my mind, which had been working hard to be elsewhere, focused on where I was, alongside accumulated debris piled against the concrete barrier: a pair of torn trousers, a doll without a head, and a single sneaker that had lost its laces. The shoe had been run over until it was tire-black.<br /><br />I got out of the Jeep and picked up the shoe. It was just a running shoe, but I held it tenderly, examining it in one hand and then turning it over to examine it in the other. I felt every wound as car after car had run over it, crushing its beauty, rending it into a vague semblance of charcoal canvas.