By Edward Abbey
Date: 26 June 2000
In Medias Res, Arizona
...slamming the door behind her. Slams it so hard the replastered wall around the doorframe shivers into a network of fine reticulations....out of my life again forever, into the dim inane of Tucson, Arizona....
I see police helicopters circling--blinking red like diabolical fireflies--above our doomed damned beleagured city. Red alert. Elaine is on the loose....
Easy come, easy go. My first and no doubt false reaction is one of relief. An immense and overwhelming sensation of blessedness. There never was a good war or a bad peace, as Abe Lincoln or Ben Franklin said. (We had similar troubles.) I sink slowly into my easy chair, hers actually, but it's all mine now. For the moment...
Familiar emotions. I've been through this ordeal before, A number of times. I know the sequence. First the abrupt departure and my immediate sense of liberation. That passes quickly. Next comes the anger, the rage....
Relief followed by outrage. Those are the first two stages. The third stage is the worst and it will come soon enough, about three o'clock in the morning: The Fear. The Terror. The Panic--awakening in the dark to find myself, as I had dreamed and dreaded, alone. Again.
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