Probably Nothing
On the road to Waddington we pass a woman climbing out of a ditch. We pull up after 100 yards and turn to watch her through the TV of our rear window. She brushes something from her pink sweat crops, glances all around. Traipses off in the other direction. "We should’ve gone back," I say, after a while. "Well, we didn’t," says Pete. He leans across to the glove box. It gapes open onto my lap with a clatter of CDs. "Choose something upbeat, for Chrissake." I grab the nearest CD. "She could’ve been mugged and left for dead," I hazard. "Been dumped by an ego-ridden boyfriend. Hit and run. Date rape. Alien abduction." I turn to stare back at the empty stretch of horizon. "It could have been anything." Pete winds his window and sticks a palm out, resisting the breeze. "Yeah," he says, "but it was probably nothing."
