Second Wind
an excerpt

She first taped the two hoses together. Nice and snug. Then she used both tape and the bungees to seal one hose end to the exhaust pipe after cramming tin foil all around the hose to make a tighter seal. She worried that the tape’s adhesive would let go with the heat, so she wrapped it a million times with the bungee. Well, maybe not a million, more like six. Then she taped the hose to a hole in the cardboard that she then taped to the passenger window. She thought, at least it’s a Miata. If she’d owned a car with a back seat, she didn’t know how many hoses it would have taken.

Job done, she got back in the driver’s seat. She sat a long time smoking, looking at the water. That water had been the source of so much joy in her life, but recently so much pain. Goddamn a man with a nice boat.

She had never had a successful relationship, unless you count minutes as success. This last one did her in. She felt like crap. He dumped her because she had “had too many men”. Her answer? If I had run into just one asshole like you a year, the number would be in the dozens by now.” This was just after she had called him a narcissistic, ego-centric, self-indulgent drunk. They’d both had better times, sometimes even when they were together. She had to admit she got a great deal of satisfaction when she had reached in her purse realizing he thought she was going for a gun. All she wanted was a smoke.