The highway, long, bright and dusty, was deserted. I hadn't seen a car in hours--not that any car would stop for me. I laughed bitterly as I imagined how I would look--clothes in tatters, four days of stubble, a blood-caked handkerchief tied around my upper arm--trying to thumb a ride. Still, my spirits were relatively high. I had been through all this before.

As I plodded along the shoulder 25 miles from the nearest town, something made me pause. I couldn't move. Impressions of memories, real and fake, washed over me; sensualities, tastes, smells, saliva, invectives, endearments...Where were they coming from? What shovel had unearthed the grave holding these long-buried emotions? I searched around on the ground for a few minutes before I discovered your lips, lying there, puckered and slightly parted, obviously cast aside in a moment of great passion.

I tried to think of some reason why you would have torn off your own lips and discarded them by the side of the road--especially a Kansas road; but no further enlightenment was forthcoming. Shrugging my shoulders, I picked up your lips, pocketed them, and trudged on.