March 13, 2003:
Cigarette ashes inside her car, thick like gray-white slush, sticking to surfaces as if they were damp: the steering column, the dashboard, the finger grips of the steering wheel, the gear-shift, the hand brake, ashes a quarter inch thick, more ashes flying in the breeze from the air vents, accumulating inside her car as they doubtless have inside her body. Real and metaphorical at the same time, like little similes of a life already turned to ash, turned to dust, while she still breathes, albeit painfully, with that deep rolling cough lifelong smokers develop, wet-sounding, like gray-white phlegm.