QUOTE : We laid in that artillery crater until dusk and prayed for a miracle: an asteroid, an airline employee strike, a follow-up artillery shell, a plague, nuclear holocaust, paralysis, anything to prevent us from getting up, from separation--first her head from my chest, then my hand from her hand, then her flight from my flight, and then my plans from us and her plans from us, and then her thoughts of us and my thoughts of us, and then her smell from my sheet and my smell from her shirt, and then . . . as the sun drifted into oblivion, forever erasing our now orange horizon, in a last desperate attempt, against a purple sky, she gave in to the absurd: "We could just remain." All I did was shrug.