We sat on the rusty grey-green hood of my scrapyard Dodge Duster, parked down at the end of the Runway 5 watching for planetesimals from the Oort cloud burning their way toward the Sun. You saw one once while we tried to out scream the jet turbines on the 7:45 super jumbo coming in from Frankfurt, so you look every time we park here. The seventy-six year gaps in Halley's schedule mean little to you. You have to look to see.

I think we are both emotional masochists, too afraid to upset the perfect balance that has formed despite our best efforts to fit in with society's patterns. We laugh at all the robot-couples down at the strip mall, secretly wondering what holding hands would be like when we are old. Fear and a laziness of spirit have wrapped us close together but insulated. Cocoons of familiarity.

The only time we really look at each other is when the sky is split by engine noise.

We talk for hours, flicking between topics like television channels. You always come back to death. You are so afraid to die, you can't see past it to live. Even the comets are grave dirt, the corpse of an unborn planet spinning back into the sun. I wonder what you would look like in a yellow sun dress, like you used to wear when we were kids. Now it's all black velvet and silver rings. Ornate trappings for the inside of a fictional pine box.

I think about the mechanics of a jet engine while you dream of zombies. Our thoughts always bleed together out here in the dark. I wonder what a jet engine could do to a man, and you dream about taking a trip to a funeral. I ask you "Will you love me when I am dead?" and you quote the state law against necrophilia with disturbing detail.

We laugh.

So many planes fly into O'Hare. We listen to the same mixed tape from high school over and over again as it echoes though the dirty windshield at us. I light up a doctored cigarette and you make us a circle of protection by pouring the guts of a Pixy stick on the hood. We talk about the same people, and tell the same stories. Like the time David's mother had the drink with the acid tabs in it, or the time with the cheap brandy that made you love me and vomit. I think about global thermonuclear war and you think about a tattoo that says "Lost: one girl. If found, please return to Chicago"

We watch the 11:34 from Los Angeles fly high, trailing its icy halo away from the sun. My heart burns up against your eyes the same way.