yossarian showed up at the door, wearing a white tuxedo. We were all going to have the perfect candlelight dinner, but then he got a nosebleed, and we had to walk ten miles to the drugstore. We cut through the park; it was flooded with ice, and the path suddenly rose up and became a steep cliff.

I lost my footing, hanging by my hands and the concrete began to melt and peel, chunks of tire rubber in my hands. Then Jim came shooting up through the ice, grinning with his silver fish. I hadn't seen him since kindergarten. He told me he had always loved me, but didn't know how to say it, "Love was different then."

I went under the ice with him; I could breathe the warm water, but I saw my father's feet approaching from above...