EXIT

She says, ‘A cube of cheese must be a kind of hell to a starving man.’

He says, a few unreflective moments later, ‘I haven’t seen a cheese fork in years.’

He’s concentrating on the road. The bitumen is wet from a spattering of rain. It would be so easy to slide away and wreck.

‘A turtle sometimes wishes she was a rabbit and a rabbit sometimes wishes she had a shell.’ She says it, not because she wishes to be profound but because she hopes it might make her seem interesting.

He doesn’t care what she says anymore, as long as she keeps speaking across his neck and into his ear. They have never kissed but she has embraced him from behind and leans some of her weight onto his spine. He can feel her vibrating against his rib cage.

They are shooting through the tunnel. They don’t talk for a moment as the lights above shutter past and turn their faces shades of spattering yellow. They don’t appear sick (although yellow can often have that effect), but instead, briefly, look otherworldly.

They both seem empty of expectation. The next moment and the next, everything passing with almost no friction. Below the yellow light, even the rushing air parts with easy submission. The tunnel is the shortest of interstices between her world and his.

She doesn’t want to tell him that riding on this motorcycle makes her feel cinematic. That she finds herself chasing that feeling, wanting these brief moments of extraction; letting them pass through her mind like someone else’s daydreams of who she might be.

He feels her thighs around him. He reaches a hand down. His fingers take a hold of her calf, slide down to her delightful ankle and back up again and release. The long tunnel is a brief moment. They are about to exit.

He says, ‘… or heaven,’ and turns his head, thinking about the starving man’s cube of cheese, almost speaking into her mouth—breath escaping both of them.