Inching Toward Home

Howard is driving his car down the M11. Gloria sits beside him, not quite sleeping. He is taking them home after times spent in places North of the places where they spend most of their days. They have had pleasant & pleasing times together.

A large vehicle is being driven by a man named George. This man has been driving for some time, in the large vehicle. George is probably quite tired. He will say this to people later; I was quite tired. He will also say; I swear I didn't see them.

We know what happens. Howard in his car, with Gloria. Not quite sleeping. George in his large vehicle, not sleeping, but perhaps not as alert as we'd like him to be. (George is gonna be fine, by the way. He lives with the guilt, of course, and his wife leaves him, but later meets a young girl who, taken in by George's haunted demeanour, takes up with him and gives him a child or two. His ex-wife dies from bad fish a year before his second sprog springs forth.)

Before it happens, Howard is thinking about how, when he gets home, he will build a bird house for the garden, like the one they saw earlier that day. Howard is happy because he knows this will bring non-sexual pleasurable sensations to Gloria.

Gloria, meanwhile, is thinking about a man from the office, the one named Thomas, and fashioning inside her mind various hypothetical encounters that could (and yet cannot, ever) take place in the weeks that, little known to Gloria, will come, as they always would, but without her.

Thomas will hook up with one of the typing girls. They will make no offspring but will see numerous locations abroad.