ILL WIND

September 1994. I am walking at night, down the side of a desolate highway. The unlighted road where I walk is the only landscape, dream as close shot. A terrific gale is blowing, terrific. The wind blasts straight at me—but not at my face. For I am walking, must walk, backward. Only this way can I make any progress, but every step is arduous. I am bent by this wind into a curve. I rest against its force, bracing myself, to lift and drag each foot. Slow motion, slow as moving through oily air.

​I am in danger too. Only the roadside white line can save me. My whole focus, undivided, unwavering, must be on that line. If I wander over the line onto the road—and I do, for oh the physical strain to keep upright—I will be killed by the speeding cars whose headlights come at me like comets. Now! Another! Too close—almost gone! Concentrate. Concentrate. Watch the line. Lift, drag, lift.

I wake. The divination comes to me whole. The only way I can go forward now is not to look ahead and to walk a narrow line. If I do not, I am gone. 1994