There’s nothing like sitting backwards in the rear of a pickup truck, watching the road shoot out in front of you like an illusionist’s scarf. The haste with which the trees hurry away and fade into the distance makes it difficult to fathom any sort of permanence. Except for the sun, which is perpetually setting, just about to sink under the horizon but never truly going under.

This is how she lived her life, gazing at her past, waiting for something to happen. Each year was a puzzle of “where did all those years go”, and she never let the past out of her sight, never turned her back to it, tended to her memories each night in the hothouse of her dreams.

The future, she took like a pill. She let it change her body, observed the direction it took her, did not give its tides much thought. She was just a body being driven around, shown the road of her own life, illustrated, narrated.

And does she know what the past is? What if the past is waiting to happen? What about the day she realizes the past is but a farce, changing with the stars and the nudges of an oblivious mind, just as uncertain as the future? What about that day?

She may turn to see who the driver is.

She may refuse to take the pills.

She may weep with her faltering memory.

She may continue staring, aghast at the way everything stretches and snaps, so insufferably brisk. Except for the sun. Which is perpetually setting.