A lake, two lovers in a rowboat, the stillness of the summer afternoon. Too perfect, cliched, like a TV commercial. A few feet below the surface, the water quickly turns dark where the light can't reach, then silty. Then deeper, the unobserved lakebed, black ooze in black water. The harsh, eerie light of a probing underwater camera moves along the murky bottom.

A going away dinner for some kind of colleague in an old-fashioned Chinese restaurant, with thick linen tablecloths and enormous tasseled menus. I open a fortune cookie that reads, "Come to terms with disappointment." The person next to me opens his, which says, "Go to pieces or don't, it doesn't matter." Coming and going. A third is opened by the colleague who's going away, his face registers dismay but he doesn't read it to the table. As we get up to leave I see it lying there next to his plate. I furtively pocket it.