The shallow stream ran past San Clemente High School and into a narrow ravine,
trickling at last into a large, gaping drainage tunnel carved into the side of the freeway. It was
nearly six thirty in the morning. An icy mist clung close to the ground, and the sky was wet gray
slate. I sat hunched over beside the tunnel, my arms dangling like empty sleeves, my eyes set
stupidly on the rolling water. I had been there ten minutes, not moving, and I didn't feel the cold.
Bobbing face down in the shallow water was a girl about my age, 18. Fairly pretty, very
dead. My eyes had somehow settled on her thin arm, with its gaudy plastic bracelets, pale blue
fingernails and short blonde hairs standing on end, all softly batting against her body like a
docked boat.
My eyes were cold as my brain lumpishly tried to turn over, but I couldn't look away
from the arm. I saw it in my head as it must have looked two days ago, very much alive, slipping
a folded note through the slats in my locker.