HANOVER IS BEHIND ME, and I’m heading for Osnabrück. Only silence coming from the trunk. I stink. I’m lonely. I wish a tire would burst, the car would overturn, and everything would come to an end. I’m lonely, and I’m also cowardly. I don’t know what I’m really doing here. It’s up to me. It’s all up to me. Too much responsibility, too many decisions. I would only have to drive to the edge of the road. I could hold his nose shut. I could soak him in gasoline. I could throttle him or drop the jack on his head until he stopped moving. I’ve played it all out in my mind. Dragged him out of the car and pushed him into the highway. Thrown him from bridges. Laid him down in front of the car. Extinguished him.
I already let him talk to me. Even though I thought I was immune to it, I want to hear his story. He speaks, I listen, and as soon as I’ve had enough, he gets the tape back over his mouth and I drive on. I recognize the lies. But I don’t know. He’s told me four stories so far. He’s everything, he’s nothing, in his fear he reinvents. I’m waiting for the moment when it clicks and I can see through him. I don’t want all the things that have happened to look like a big coincidence. I hate coincidences. But that’s exactly what he makes it look like. One great big damned coincidence. I don’t want my friends’ lives to be left to chance. I’d rather kill a handful of gods. Or the one God, if he dared to antagonize me.