The day was ending and the sky was dark with the coming storm. Everything had lost color at the day's end and the fields were gray in anticipation of the impending storm. Down a colorless road was a farm, looking moist and gray before the storm.
I approached the farm in my car and got out. I remembered that I forgot to turn off the ignition so I got back in and turned off the ignition. I remembered to get the keys, and I got out and locked the car using the keys. I put the keys in my pocket.
Rain was beginning to fall when I reached the door. I knocked twice and the door opened so quickly I knew Alice had been sitting waiting by the door.
She stood in the doorway, dark and faceless because of the bright light behind her.
"Hi Paul hon, come in before you're soaked. How was your trip here?"
I said nothing.
I went in and my eyes adjusted to the light and I saw the date on the calendar on the wall: May 26, 1969. I could see her clearly now and she looked beautiful. Alice was a smart and pretty girl and we were now engaged for two months. I saw she was upset because I didn't return her greeting just now and I was going to apologize and make it better but she had already turned, wringing her hands as she walked to the living room, where the television was on. I followed her to the living room.
She looked nervous as she sat down on the sofa wringing her hands. I sat next to her and she looked so beautiful I kissed her on the top of her head and on her lips. She said nothing but moved away a few inches. I followed her but she moved again so I turned to watch the television.
It was the evening news. John Lennon and Yoko Ono were in Montreal. They were in a bed, saying that they were having a protest against the conflict in Vietnam; they were calling it a bed-in for peace. They were acting like they had invented peace and I became angry.
I motioned to Alice to turn off the television. "What are they doing, that long-haired freak and that hippie-whore? They should stop criticizing the soldiers over in Vietnam and do something besides lie in a bed." I saw Alice flinch and get angry at "hippie-whore" and I felt bad because she had moved away when I had kissed her and now I was making things worse. I remembered Alice had been to a peace march in Detroit and I felt worse.
But I said nothing as she strode to the television and snapped it off. The television's screen had been the only light in the room and when it went dark the only light came from the hall.
Alice wrung her hands and sat back down on the sofa. She would not look at me and she kept her hands in her lap. The storm that was beginning when I came in had gained strength and now a flash of lightning startled us both in the dark room. A little while later there was a faint rumble.
I said nothing. The rain was making a continual static noise.
Suddenly, while it was quiet, she said a little too loudly into the darkness: "You think fighting is better than peace?"
I knew she was finding an excuse to argue so I said nothing, but then she turned to stare at me, waiting for my answer.
"You think even fighting is better than thinking about something like peace like those two?" She acted like I hadn't heard her the first time.
After a while she said, "You probably would." She seemed disgusted.
I said nothing and for a long while it was quiet.
Inhaling fast she said, "I don't like being engaged to you anymore. That's why I asked you to come down here tonight. It would be callous to tell you this over the phone."
For a long time I said nothing. I felt as if I was punched in the stomach and everything was collapsing around me and it was bright and then the sensation of being punched and then it was all bright and collapsing and I felt as if I had been punched and then it all happened again and then it was bright and then it became normal again. But then the lightning flashed and it was bright again and then there was a rumble and everything felt as if it were going to collapse but then I was normal again.
I pulled out a cigarette from my pocket and placed it in my mouth, pulled a lighter from my other pocket, lighted the cigarette and put the lighter back into the pocket. Leaning back on the sofa I sucked on the cigarette, found an ashtray labeled SCANDINAVIAN TEAK, picked it up with one hand, and removing the cigarette from my mouth with the other hand, I exhaled.
"Why?" I said.
"I don't know if you've always been this way and I just haven't seen it, but I've noticed this lately: you're so unresponsive to me. You act like a machine, you never say anything."
I said nothing. What would I do now? Could I do something to solve this problem? Was there a way to change her mind?
"Is there a way I could change your mind? I'll try anything to change your mind. How can I change your mind?" I puffed on the cigarette and shook it over the ashtray to make the burnt part drop onto it.
Alice was quiet out of doubt and while it was quiet I could see that she was growing more angry.
So that was it. She didn't want to be engaged any more. I was an unresponsive machine. That trap always got you in the end: the last-minute-change-on-a-whim trap. I put the cigarette in the ashtray, put the ashtray down, and got up to leave.
Alice seemed alarmed at my getting up and she said, "So that's it? You're going?"
"Yup."
"Fine."
"I'll keep in touch."
"Go to hell." When she said this there was a really bright flash of lightning and immediately a roar of thunder overhead.
I acted casual. "See you there."
"Go to hell." More lightning, and the thunder was louder and more immediate.
"Ladies first."
Alice was now really angry and pushed me out the living room to the front door.
"Goddamn you, you can forget about keeping in touch."
"What a shame."
"Fuck-you-go-to-hell-and-get-the-fucking-hell-off-my-farm." She said it like it was one word.
In the heavy rain I ran for my car about a hundred yards away. I was about to reach into my pocket for the keys when I saw the lightning and I heard the thunder simultaneously strike the gray-looking farmhouse. I dropped into a crouch and felt the sudden heat wave on me. I heard Alice scream. I was thankful for my rubber-soled shoes and I was careful not to touch the possibly electrically charged ground with my unprotected hands.
I looked up to see that the house was on fire; it was so big that not even all the rain coming down could stop it.
I got into my car and drove off to nearest gas station twenty miles away, where I could phone the fire department. I drove down the rainy road, glad that I was wearing rubber-soled shoes.