Guy walks up to me in the park and says, “My girlfriend killed
    James Brown,” and I start to say, “Do I know you?” but
I don’t want to miss out on the story, so I say, “No lie!” and he says,
    “Yeah, I got bumped up to first class, and when I saw who
my seatmate was, I went back to economy and told my girlfriend,
    and even though she had the flu, we switch places, and three

weeks later, James Brown is dead.” How’d you like that on your résumé?
    Or anyone’s death, though that didn’t bother the local woman
who got life recently for murdering her husband because, according
    to the trial transcript, she didn’t want to “suffer the shame of
a divorce.” Nothing good comes from murder. Well, if you murder
    Hitler, yeah, but suppose you murder Hitler and somebody

worse takes his place? The girlfriend didn’t mean to kill James Brown,
    though. Accidental death’s a whole other kettle of fish. Imagine
the girlfriend sometime later, on another flight, and she dozes off
    in the middle of a movie, and when she wakes, she notices
everyone else is sleeping, including the flight attendants, and she rings
    the call button, but nobody comes, and she shakes her seatmate’s

arm, but he doesn’t respond, either, and that’s when she thinks,
    These people aren’t sleeping, but the plane keeps flying, and
it lands somehow, and she finds herself at an arrival gate and then
    a cabstand, and she doesn’t know where she wants to go, though
the cabbie seems to, and everyone is happy and friendly, if a little
    distant, she says to herself, as though they’re in this place but not