I’m talking to you. Don’t waste it…”
“Why? What if I end up at my folks’?”
“Because…,” Melina began to say and just then the sun went down and her voice broke. He made a few quickening movements and set off. He recalled the aerial battle that for him had just ended in a nameless wadi in North Africa. A man lasts without air for three minutes, in a blizzard for three hours, and without water for only three days. As if he could read her mind. He hoped that a patrol would pass by, or that he would see an airplane veering so far south for some reason. She wouldn’t realize it for two or three months, when she saw that she wasn’t getting any more letters from him. He felt a light touch like when her fingers stroked his hair and a waft of her perfume floated around him. He made a few quickening movements and set off.