There would come a day every winter, near the end, when it would become too much, even for a veteran of hunger.  Had he been alone, as he had been in years before, he would have locked himself away.  It was not a matter of restraint, of keeping law or following orders, it was a matter of pride; stubborn, juvenile pride, but pride nonetheless.  Anything his elder could do, he could do also, but now… Now here these three were, and to them, there was no matter of pride, no need to vindicate self image after long years of being treated as a fool and a child, no, there was only hunger, and a stupid bloody rule that kept them hungry. 

And the breaking point drew nearer, he could feel it.  Tension grew in them as in a guitar string, tuned ever sharper, waiting to snap back and leave stinging welts on the hand that turned the knob.  The lair reeked of saddle-soap and weed long since smoked, tempers rose, voices cracked, the deliveries grew more frequent.  David's shoes had never been cleaner, and his hands were stained black with polish, February drew on.

As usual, it started when he woke up with a headache; he squeezed his eyes shut, bit his lip, and fell to the floor with an impressive symphony of flutters and thump.  His eyes, he was sure, were slowly oozing out between his lids, and pooling with the slime of brain that had leaked out of his ears during the day.  It was the sort of headache usually induced by several hours' working with cleaning fluids, while small children jumped up and down on your forehead.  It was the kind of headache which made one think longingly of migraines, the kind of headache that waited, patiently, gathering strength at the base of your skull for weeks before erupting in full-force to make your life generally miserable for days.  And then he realised that he hadn't actually woken up yet, and that when he hit the floor in a moment or two, it would all be ten times worse.

'Maybe', he thought wistfully as his eyes opened, 'I'll just sleep till June.'  And then he hit the ground with a groan; the night had come.  He struggled to lift himself up; even crawling would have more dignity than lying there, waiting for the craving to sweep him up.  His heart beat behind his eyes, slowly, pointedly, throbbing with the pain…or the pain ebbed between heartbeats, whichever.  Dimly, through the haze of headache and the growling emptiness in his gut, he realised he was being talked at.  Sneakers, sneakers were… Marco?  Yeh, sneakers were Marco, shut up sneakers.  If there were to be any shutting up, he knew, he must somehow verbalize the injunction; he strained to make his lips move to produce once-familiar sounds, and managed little more than a growl filled with half-linguistic murmurs.

"You okay, man?  You-uh, slept pretty late…"  He had slept late?  He had slept late?  Marco's level of perception (or lack-there-of) was astounding.  He would have liked to comment but he was, demonstrably non-verbal.  He wasn't sure which annoyed him more, the idiocy or his inability to mock. 

"Okay, you officially look like shit," David rolled his eyes desperately, save him from his friends, someone!  He reached out, with an effort, and seizing hold of Marco's ankle, squeezed for all the pain was worth.  The other gave an indignant yelp of pain, and tried to shake him off, but he just dug his nails in, snarling. 

"Shit, man!  What the hell?"

***

            She could not bring herself to leave the ragged skeletons of the summer town, something powerful, some silent recognition of how deeply and truly she belonged there held her.  She was thinking about Thom, about his new book, and about his "untimely death" as the Times' reviewer had put it.  Thomas Evans was dead.  She had killed a man. 

"You forgive me, Tommy?  I know you would, too.  Stupid son of a bitch, waited till the book was done.  Always practical, right?  No use killing yourself so close to the end."  She moaned softly, Thom Evans was dead, and he had sent her an advance copy.

'To a star, who enjoyed playing the Cosmic Trickster, a man's love unkind not.'

What a dedication, what a Cummings-fixated asshole Thomas Evans was, to the very end. 

"The dedication, the last piece of the collection written, was in fact left with instructions to his publisher in Evans' suicide note.  Those friends and family members who were willing to comment could shed no light on its meaning.  This is highly unfortunate, as the dedication is, perhaps, the most worthwhile piece in the entire collection.  Once again Evans has managed to compile a book full of maudlin love songs and winterish malingering, which he fails to save with a unique, appealing style, leaving one with a distinct feeling of sorrow and longing.  If only Evans had been properly medicated, one thinks sadly, not only would he be alive today, but I might have enjoyed his writing."

She watched the water sadly from the heights she had climbed, and thought no more of Thomas Evans, but only of herself, and of the uncomfortable disease she had bequeathed upon more than one man, though only Thom would have said it so.  God damn it, why would the boy not leave her alone?  He was dead, dead, dead, and she had other things to be guilty about now.  It was not fair, he had killed himself, he had forfeited the right to blame her for his death, she had no reason to feel so guilty.  He had-

Could she?  Look how high she had climbed to see the ocean.  If she hit the ground from here, she would die, but had she the will, did she dare?  Maria's heart would break, and look how much she still owed her aunt and uncle…  But look at the ground down there, and think of Tommy.  Tommy hadn't the guts of a gnat, but he had used that knife, "surgically", he had made it look expert, when he had left this all on her.  Fuck you, Thomas Evans, and fuck your poetry, and fuck how you loved her, and fuck what she'd done.  Maybe she'd fly away, instead, fly to Lon-  no, this was the Pacific, she'd fly to Tokyo, if anywhere.

Maybe she'd just, slip up, climbing in a skirt was so dangerously stupid.  Maybe she'd trip and fall…  But it would look like she'd jumped anyway, so why bother?  Why try that tiny lie that no one would hear anyway?

***

            He was walking, hands pressed tight against his diaphragm, he breathed evenly.  'I will win,' he promised himself, he promised his smugly grinning starvation, he promised his self righteous son-of-a-bitch guardian.  'I always win.'  The night was cool, for southern California, and spring, still more than a month away, promised itself about the edges of the scenery.  His head hurt, and his heart beat loudly in his ears, stranglingly in his throat.