Later: I sit on the curb of an empty parking lot. I replay memory and fill in the empty spaces.

Then: I remember that I take greater comfort in emptiness. I chase the memory of cars away. Light falls on oil stains. It takes so long for white lines to fade.

Remember the sea? Just before the sun wrecked? All the avenues spilling cars and pedestrians into the water. I remember you, your head a dark bonfire.

And I recall childhood: a lighthouse.

Remember the people you loved and trusted? They are gone, clearcut like trees. You find yourself standing alone in a clearing, where you never once suspected there was a clearing.

We never met but somehow remember each other. I'll meet you tonight at a bus stop up in the fog. I'll feed you caps of brandy and hope you don't mind my breath in your ear. And we'll talk for hours and wait for a bus that never comes.

There's no heaven, but everything is fine in the fog.