Lexicon

it.
” He put a hand on her shoulder.
    She turned and shoved him. He staggered backward. He really was holding a fistful of cash. Behind him, the train began to pull out.
    “I’m trying to help you.”
    “Fuck off!” she shouted. And she went after him, for some reason, and pushed him again. “Leave me alone!” He tried to catch her arm. But she was too quick for that. Whatever else he was, he wasn’t prepared for someone who fought back. She shoved him again. “
Leave me alone!
” His back hit the moving train and he rebounded a step onto the platform. Her brain was full of violence and her star was singing and another push could send him between the carriages. If she timed it right. She thought,
Yeats, Yeats, save it for Yeats.
    “Jesus,” said the man. “Jesus.” He got around her and ran away.
    She stood there, breathing. She needed to get out of here. She had to leave before the cops arrived. She made for the exit, her hoodie pulled tight. She couldn’t wait for the space bag. She would have to call and have it mailed. She had to take herself out of the cities, away from people, before someone got hurt.
    • • •
    A month later, she was trudging across the desert. She had a stick. It was night, because during the day you could see for twenty miles in all directions, and she assumed someone would be looking. Also snakes slept at night. She wore a fur-lined parka and loose shorts, maybe an odd combination, but the thing was the nights were cold enough to freeze exposed sweat. A twenty-eight-pound backpack was strapped around her waist and shoulders. She was loving her boots: big, brown, comfortable shit-kickers.
    She made good ground on night one and stopped at the first hint of dawn. She found a depression in the dirt beside three scrubby trees, a long-dead waterhole, and spread her space bag beneath them. She sat on it awhile, cooling, watching the stars retreat and the sky lighten. Her body felt satisfyingly used. Not exhausted. She was in good shape. She ate a hard biscuit and crawled beneath the space bag and fell asleep.
    She woke a few hours later in a furnace. She was swimming in sweat. She peeked out, thinking maybe she’d lost her shade. But no. It was just hot. She wriggled out, keeping flat to the ground to avoid presenting a profile, and unzipped her backpack. She pulled out four wooden stakes and used them to suspend the space bag a few feet above the ground. The idea was to remain camouflaged from above while allowing air to move around her. She stripped naked, crawled under the sheet, sucked water from her drinking tube, and tried to sleep.
    The second night was harder. Her legs felt suspiciously sore, which they hadn’t during her trials. She might have been pushing herself, walking faster than she needed to. She was blowing her water budget, too. She forced herself to slow down, stop for more rests, but then worried that she was falling behind on distance, which would create new water problems. The chances were excellent that she could source fresh water in Broken Hill, in which case she had no problem. But she did not want to rely on this, since if she was wrong she would die. She kept walking, her stick ready, in case of night snakes.
    She made less ground than she wanted and stopped early, feeling dizzy. She drank a lot, even splashing some on her face. She ate more biscuits. She hadn’t brought many of those, to avoid temptation, because digestion increased the body’s demand for water. That was starting to seem like a mistake. She crawled under the space bag.
    Again, she was woken by the sun baking the earth and had to convert the bag to a little tent. This time, however, she realized the trees she’d camped beneath were basically leafless, which was a serious problem, because no shade. There was no wind and the underside of the space bag radiated heat. She lay there as long as she could, watching her skin turn mottled pink then red, and crawled out and curled against the trunk of a tree. It was better but only a little. She began to seriously wonder if she would die. Two weeks ago, she had decided against bringing the long white Bedouin robes that would have made it possible to walk in the daytime without passing out, thinking they weren’t worth the weight. This decision might kill her.
    She drank her electrolytes. Every thirty minutes, she tipped tiny amounts of water onto her hands and wiped them across her face and neck. The water pack grew scarily thin but it