When Camilla pulled into the parking spot farthest from the diner door the sky had lightened to a deep gray, about the same color as the car, she noted as she stared out over the hood.

The little town was one of those who had not caught the 24-hour fever. She found the fact refreshing. People here actually slept. They knew the difference between night and day. It would be a safe gamble to say that no one here looked out of a fifteen story window and was shocked to find that the sun had set, then looked at the clock to discover it was about ready to come up again.

The traffic signals had stopped blinking just as she'd reached the edge of town--it was startling to find that some towns still did that. She could hear her father's voice explaining to her when she was a child that the lights blinked in the wee hours of the morning instead of alternating between green, yellow and red. It had been ages since she'd forgotten that towns could do that. The traffic was a constant feature of her life. Traffic lights downed at three in the morning could still cause massive confusion.

Of course the first light went instantly to red in her direction and after she stopped at the first red light, it seemed she stopped at each and every one thereafter. Some corners were dotted with solid square building with dark awnings and empty planters out in front. Others were open lots or corner gas stations, two of which had opened for the day. At one, a huge four-wheel drive truck was parked head-to-toe with a police cruiser, and a cloud of condensation disappeared and reappeared between the vehicles as the speakers took turns listening to one another. When the light at the intersection changed, Camilla pulled away slowly, feeling their eyes on her as she passed. At the next light a man was unloading soft drinks from his delivery truck onto a dolly. The light was red at that intersection too, and Camilla peered down the street praying for the neon of a local eating establishment. Surely if people were starting to get out and about, someone would be thinking about feeding the bachelors and widowers who had no reason to stay in bed and every reason to seek company and a good meal as well.

Vaguely she wished she had held tighter to the pecan pie idea of earlier. That desire had been lost as the yellow broken stripes blipped past and then changed to solid and back again. The road was flat and interrupted only by little towns like Slapout and Felt, the kind that if you blinked at the wrong time, you missed the sign and the only clue left was that this might be an important corner was a cluster of houses close to the road and maybe a feed store or gas station.

Thinking about it now, she couldn't have said what filled her mind all that time. After that brief vision of Stuart choking she made herself think of anything other than her former life. Neither could she allow visions of her future at this point. That would deserve a more careful consideration when she was over this initial flight and actually landed somewhere. And so all that she could do was let her mind wander at will, with just the few electric fences to jolt it into obedience when it strayed into forbidden territory. She kept the radio on, but the volume muted so that the clock on her dash didn't exist. She hadn't let the clock dictate her work time; it shouldn't have a say in her play time either. Still she found herself guessing that it must be five or six in the morning. Probably closer to five. In a small town like this more early risers would be out and about if it were six.

Her stomach was acting like a neglected puppy, barking at her ever louder as she tried to ignore it. In the silence of the car it echoed almost as badly as the one short laugh she'd indulged in so many miles earlier.

There was no neon to be seen, but Camilla's eyes were burning with weariness as well. When a sign for The Eatery sprang into view she decided to pull in and maybe catch a wink or two until the place opened. But now that she had given her eyelid permission to close, they seemed to want to pop open, and so the easiest thing to do was compare the color of the car and the sky and dream a bit of what she might have for breakfast.

The place was small, and she guessed that it was stucco with a darker color trim. There was a smoothness to it that wouldn't have been there had it been brick or siding. It almost looked like a former farm house with a front porch that had been carefully enclosed. Camilla decided to check the sign on the door for an opening time. It would be good to stretch her legs.

It was one of those nights when the whole world looked just like an unventilated bathroom after a long, hot shower. The road lifted over a hill in front of her stretched like a seal's back. She settled back into the leather of her Jaguar and listened to the engine hum.

There was a hush in the air, and no one was about, sort of like the way the world stood still when she happened to be out of the house on Christmas morning. People were content to be home at this hour.

Then people were content with a lot of things that she refused to be. Anymore.

She wasn't quite sure where she was driving to. There was an idea playing at the edge of her mind about seeing New Mexico, and she was headed in the right direction for that. Mountains sounded right as well. Like a pulse point on a heart monitor. Something that would pull her life out of the flatline that seemed to describe everything about her.

But she was successful! Ha! She laughed out loud, one syllable, short and sharp, and it echoed, harsh and mocking. She could hear their tongues now. Camilla was off the deep end.

Swimming away from the sharks had to be better than swimming with them.

Her efficiency served her well. The resignation letter had been drawn up inside an hour and delivered. The realtor had been at the house within the next and their sign would appear on the lawn before nightfall tomorrow. The storage company had been paid handsomely to come box everything she left behind and tuck it away somewhere safe until she was ready to toss it all. A few keystrokes and all bills were paid, cable service was cancelled, subscriptions suspended.

The part that took the longest was deciding what would come with her.

In the end, she'd decided that she could only take what would fit in the trunk. Her laptop and the cell phone were relunctantly packed, but she refused to have them in the cab of the car with her. She'd have to be able to call her mother to stop the APB that would be launched if she found out about any of this through the grapevine. Calling her from home was out of the question though. It simply wasn't home anymore.

There were a few other things back there in the trunk, mostly necessities, but some other things that had been stored for way too long. She felt like she was dusting off her soul as she blew away the film and loaded what amounted to playthings on top of the clothes--not a dress or a suit among them--and books she didn't want to live without. Her camera was the only thing allowed to ride on the seat beside her. She reached out to feel it, just to be sure, and her hand found only leather. Startled she glanced over and saw the solid shape of it shifted toward the passenger door. She centered it safely in the seat again and wondered if it would be absolute insanity to put it in a seatbelt.

A large semi derailed her train of thought with headlights that hit her squarely in the face. It would probably be better to pay a little more attention to the road instead of gloating over her escape. Still she found herself grinning at the thought of the jaws that would be dusting the floor as this news moved from one ear to another.

She could see Stuart Comers taking a bite of his morning pecan roll and asking Susan, "Where's Camilla?"

"She's quit, didn't you hear?"

And in her fantasy he'd choke and no one would know the Heimlich maneuver.

Pecan pie sounded good. And some coffee. Next town she'd find an all-night diner.

I'm getting this done early today because I have to have time to build my ark. We are in a line of rain that stretches from Missouri to Old Mexico. Awesome.

Trouble is, I was supposed to go get my dress for my sister's wedding and make sure all the alterations were done properly. Then I was finally going to get to sit down and have dinner with her. I have a feeling in my gut it's not going to happen.

The rain last night was amazing. A gully washer no doubt. The ground is saturated at this point and the water is just running off. We could even have hail and wind today--circulating wind. I'm nuts to go anywhere.

It was at precisely 10:41 AM on March 2, 2004 when Camilla Preston decided to stop smiling.

She looked at her picture in the Society page of the local paper. The Sunday paper. Today was Wednesday and it was the first time she'd been out of bed since the event. But look at that smile.

She was wedged between a dictator dowager and a back-stabbing buddy but still she smiled. It made her downright angry at the moment, as she stood there in Homer Simpson slippers and her favorite old yellow matted bathrobe. She tried to run the fingers of her left hand through her hair as she did whenever she was exasperated, but her fingers stuck in the tangles. Instead she wadded up the newspaper page and made her way to the kitchen where she stomped the toe kick of the trash can, tossed the crumpled page and let the lid slam in a most satisfying way.

She grabbed a heavy glass from the cabinet and clunked it on the counter beside the fridge. She pulled the door open and was momentarily shocked by the cold. There wasn't much to choose from, but the color of the orange juice was a cheerful color. She poured it, hoping to drink down some sunshine--something to get her going.

But as she sipped the tart juice she thought again of the picture in the paper. How could she possibly smile like that when she was surrounded by betrayal and deceit? Why was she so compelled to smile all the time?

She shuffled back to her living room to the shelves that lined the wall beside the big-screen television. Camilla squinted at the spines, looking for the few photo albums she thought she had, then remembering she'd started stuffing pictures in boxes because she was too busy to do much else. She dug in the cabinet underneath and pulled two out and turned the boxes upside down on the carpet. The pictures scattered like clunky flakes fighting with the pale green, gold and burgundy pattern of the carpet.

Camilla wasn't looking at anything but faces, particularly hers. Smiling. Grinning. Smiling again. But wasn't that what one did for pictures? There she was getting her last promotion. That was another time she'd slept for three days afterward. She'd pulled over 48 hours straight getting an important account untangled and there she stood, bright as a daisy, smiling like she'd just gotten the best night's sleep she'd ever had.

Well, she was through with that. Absolutely through. She didn't feel like smiling. She didn't feel like working. She didn't feel like answering the phone that had rung six times since she'd finally peeled herself from bed.

She felt like crying. And so that is what Camilla Preston did, sitting on her living room floor, watching blue-green LED reading on the VCR clock begin to swim before her eyes, looking like a jobless, nameless reject from high school, feeling like a reject from life. Something had to change. But first the old had to be washed away. From there grim determination would take over and the next time she smiled, it would be because she was happy, not because she was acting.

This is for my faithful reader(s). I already wrote once today but I can't let poor blogger go unattended again today.

Spring is well and truly here. After a rather dry spring last year, today's cloudbursts and rumbles have been so welcome. Perhaps this year we won't end up a foot under the average rainfall for the year.

My son began scalping our lawn toward the end of last week. He and his dad actually managed to get slight sunburns. Time to drag out the sunscreen again. Yay! For solar powered people like me it is such a blessing. In fact I was standing in my kitchen just yesterday saying to myself, I don't have to look outside to know it's lovely. My bones feel it. My mind and hands and heart are ready to wake up and take on new projects. This month is going to be an absolute zoo, and you know what? I don't care. I'm ready. I can feel sunshine, heat and it's firing me up.

I kept getting distracted by all the seed and bulb packets at the checkout counter at WalMart yesterday too. I can start planning my flower containers for this season. Wahoo! My hands are looking forward to being in the ground.

My house is a disaster area. It doesn't matter what room you go in, there's a lot of something there that isn't where it belongs. And you know--I'm in the mood to THROW THINGS OUT! Or rather--give things away. It's time to lighten up and move on.

My sister's wedding is in a week and a half, which means my anniversary is about two weeks away. No plans. Actually I'm saving up for next year. The big two - oh. :) I think we deserve a medal. LOL! This has not been an easy thing to keep going, but has it been worth it. Yes, yes, yes. A thousand times yes. I have a teenager I love to be with and a pre-teen who still likes to give me hugs, and you know--there's no telling how different it would be had we given up those times when we felt sure there was nothing we could do to salvage things. It's never hopeless. You just have to have to tools to work with, two people who are willing to work, and the fact that you're both going to have to answer for whatever decisions you make (and their consequences) to someone who is expecting you to follow His guidelines. It can be done. And easy outs aren't always the best solution.

Oh, listen to the birds! They are everywhere--from huge black cawing crows to small finches who still have their reddish feathers. I woke up hearing them a few mornings ago and felt that same uplift that I did in the kitchen feeling the sunshine. I always tell myself if I can just get through February everything will be okay.

So here it is--a whole lot of nothing. Fingers and mind rambling and catching it in the butterfly net in hopes that something here will be worth pinning down and studying for future use. Right now, the ham in my oven is calling me to peek at it. It's sending warm, salty vibes right to my nose. :) And then there's the tax file glaring at me from across the room. And Abe's school portfolio information that should have been in the mail months ago. I am soooooooooo behind in so many things except for the writing. Can you believe it? The Cup of Comfort entry was a bust--would have known about that by the 1st of March. And the 24 hour short story results are in--door prize, no placement. But no problem. I didn't expect anything. That story was truly insane. I don't think I could show it to anyone else without a loaded gun to my head. LOL! The rest are still pending, perhaps in need of follow-up. Need to check January's sheet....

Okay, I'm really going now. It's been fun typing to ya!

Well I wrote 607 words and the computer decided they were drivel because I lost them between the writing and the preview stage. So all you get to read is this. No time to retry now. Sowwy!!