Sarah heard the soft thump thump of the windshield wipers, and then a little while later she heard it again. Somewhere from deep in her dozing it entered her mind that the sky that had been getting greyer as she nodded off must have finally decided to start drizzling. This later was further confirmed as she floated back up towards wakefulness. The sound of the passing traffic had changed. Instead of just the Doppler zooms of motors and wheels, there was now also the hiss of the thin sheen of water being disturbed and spraying up from the pavement.

She heard it, but she didn't really want to. She wanted to go back to sleep and stay there for the rest of the trip. That way the cab driver wouldn't keep trying to talk to her. Why do cab drivers do that, anyway? She had nothing to say to him, and she wasn't interested in what he had to say. Maybe he thought he needed to entertain her or something, but she didn't want him to. She just wanted him to leave her alone. So she had leaned her head back against the seat and closed her eyes. The driver had rambled on a little while longer; she couldn't decide if he was being stubborn or just liked to hear himself talk. But she kept her eyes closed, and after a bit she'd managed to achieve something like unconsciousness. She had been vaguely aware when they'd been in the long backup going north over the Whitestone Bridge, but just sleepy enough that she hadn't even been tempted to open her eyes. She'd noticed the driver was no longer talking, and she'd drifted into the doze with a oozing sense of accomplishment permeating her perceptions.

The hissing pavement sounds told her the traffic had lightened up considerably. Sarah vaguely wondered how far upstate they'd gotten, how much longer they'd be driving, but she decided she really didn't care. She didn't want to get there. She didn't want to be in the car. She didn't want to be making this move, and she didn't want to hear all the reasons for making it all over again.

It was all a bunch of crap, anyway. The whole MRSA thing. Big deal.

Yeah, okay, Stephen had died. And some of his teammates had come down with it. But the whole panic mode that all the parents went into was just stupid. I mean, sure, you'd expect the kids to act like idiots, running around school screaming, "You've got Staph! You've got Staph!" at other kids. Fights starting over who had it and who didn't.

Sarah wasn't an idiot. She knew they all had staph. ~Everybody on the whole damn planet has it,~ she reminded herself in the echo chamber that was her sleepy semiconscious. ~But that doesn't mean we're all going to die from it.~

~It doesn't mean we have to be saved from it. Not like this.~

Sarah couldn't help it -- her mind was coming more and more fully awake as she thought of the situation that had landed her in this cab with smelly vinyl seats, heading upstate in a drizzle that was getting heavier, judging by the shorter intervals between the thump thumps of the windshield wipers.

She shifted around to try to find another angle to rest her head and maybe find sleep again. She settled with her forehead pressing against the window of her door. The plexiglass was cold and damp with condensation from the outside. It was soothing, in its way, except when the cab hit a pothole and she bumped her forehead. Stubbornly, she tried to ignore that. Determined to forestall any chance at cabby conversation, she kept her eyes resolutely closed.

~If Mom were here,~ she thought bitter amusement, ~she'd be wiping down the window and all the seats with alcohol or bleach. Probably squirt hand sanitizer all over the driver, too.~ The image made her smirk at the same time as it made her stomach clench with frustration.

Sarah's mom had practically led the charge of angry parents once word had gotten out about Stephen's death. Sarah hadn't seen it herself, but she heard the talk going around at lunch the day after he died that about twenty parents had shown up in the school lobby, demanding to see the principal, the nurse, the football coach, their children's teachers, the janitors...anybody they could possibly blame for what had happened to Stephen. After lunch, Sarah had intentionally taken a route to her next class that would go past the lobby, but if there had ever been a crowd there, they'd been cleared off by that point.

However, there was tension the rest of the day. And the day after. Classes got interrupted by groups of official looking people coming to classroom doors, looking in, peering around, taking notes ... all without saying anything to the teachers or the students by way of explanation. It was all pretty creepy. Some of the kids were genuinely scared they were going to die, and no number of informational assemblies put on by the assistant principal would convince them otherwise.

~They love the drama,~ Sarah explained to her sleepy self. ~They think they're part of something big and important. Or they think that, if they can just find the right person to blame, they can sue and have it made for the rest of their lives. Whatever.~

~Mom loves the drama, too. Stupid .... ~ Sarah really wanted to curse her mother out, even if it only was in her thoughts, but she just couldn't. She didn't dare. You don't curse your mom. Not ever.

You obey your mom, too. Even when she's being an... ~idiot~, Sarah mentally concluded. "Idiot" was pushing the envelope of respect, but it was close enough to the truth that she felt justified using it. ~After all, only an idiot embraces the drama, goes out of the way to find more of it, and overreacts to it rather than learning the truth of the situation.~

That was how come Sarah had ended up in this stupid, smelly taxi cab, heading upstate on a drizzly day at the beginning of what should have been a great Freshman year at the high school she'd been looking forward to attending with her friends, looking forward to it all the years of school until now. But now, three weeks into the school year, all hell had broken loose, and her mom had sent her north in a hurry, like God kicking Lot and the missus out of Sodom and Gomorrah.

But Sarah didn't have a Lot to keep her company. ~Not a Lot to keep me company~, she repeated in her thoughts, smirking at the pun she'd tripped upon. Puns were good. They kept life in perspective, especially when they just sort of jumped out at you at just the right moment.

But yeah...not a Lot to keep her company. And she'd looked out the back window over and over as the cab had carried her away from her home, her school, her friends.

As far as she could tell, she hadn't turned into a pillar of salt, yet.

But she kind of wished she would.