There was a seamless instantaneous momentum in the way the car’s engine started. One Two rode the car without the headlamps’ assisting brightness over the park’s overgrown meadow grass and covered in crusty branches broken by the wind. One Two had turned away from you and instead looked onto the path faint from the yawning morning. To access the Retiree Park with a car was illegal, but it was also not meant for them. He drove you through bogs and fields and only infrequently used the paths and trails on the way to the semi-cemetery’s exit. Unlike Mary’s pride—her taxicab—the automobile didn’t wobble, convulse, or fling the seats up or down as rode away.

Instead of smashing through the fog, the luminous clouds rolled over the car like welcoming bedsheets. With only an inch or less of a margin between the brick stone pillars and the width of the automobile, One Two passed through the exit arch and cruised into the two-lined road. He held the wheel with a weak grip. He checked you, the outlandish watch on his wrist illuminating only his arm and a small part of his shoulder. He motioned to the notebook with his hand.

“Anything else you can tell me about ‘Cass’, Elmer Briant?”

You had to speak irrelevant half-truths. “She can change the shape of her body, but it’ll still remain gelatinous and orange.”

He waited until you, surrounded by the veneer, wrote that in the notebook … to the best of your ability, as scribbles you couldn’t even see anymore in the dark interior.

“How did you manage to keep the thing’s form a secret as you moved through the town?”

“I found her a dress” —Mary’s groan was furlong yet loud— “and a lid to cheese it. It worked well when it was still the middle of the night.”

“And that thing had this dress and hat on it as it got away from you?”

Your fingers sank into your thigh as you grit your teeth. “She did, it was a white dress, and I gave her a cloche hat.”

The automobile came to a complete yet fluent stop before the red bleeding traffic light. One Two hung his gaze in front of the road, the three-coloured brass cone several feet above unimportant to him as if he already knew when it was going to turn green. A few seconds after, he was forced to raise his head.

The suspended ceiling sky cracked and the grey paint fell to reveal the brilliant cream-white beneath the facade. Companionless lighting flashed and shattered the clouds. It lasted a couple of seconds and then the sombre overhang rumbled to close the crack. Beneath the same cloud, a small dot, shimmering like a polar star, was descending.

You heard One Two’s glove crease and creak. His grip tightened. He made you sit in silence for a minute, no more.

“We are going to take a detour, Elmer Briant, Mary Briant. I deem this more important.” His voice lacked the passion of his words.