Rabbits journey out from the concealing brush to the open, grassy verge around this time of day, I know, in search of a leafy dinner. They move like shadows through the long shadows.

I envy them their peaceful ritual. Compared to the ineluctable tensions of my own imminent repast, with its silent accusations, its muted affronts, its undigestible leftovers of recrimination, a rabbit's evening banquet is an idyll of tranquillity.

If I see a rabbit, I have told myself for more than thirty years, what I wish to be will be, what I desire sated, but only once. One rabbit, the first, one wish. Today my spirit needs a rabbit as much as my body needs the hearty if disheartening meal toward which I advance.

My eyes seek soft brown, see brown, in patches throughout the grass, in gaps between the brush, in the twitch of a duck's wing as it rests within the reeds.

The whoosh of the speeding pick-up truck as it passes startles me: my hands jerk on the steering wheel, my car turns sharply to the right. The weight of my car tips toward the shadows. I look up at the road in time to see that the passing truck will not hit me, would not have hit me, but it is too late. My right front wheel dips into the narrow ravine between the road and the verge and I lose control.

And everything that happens happens slowly, as if by a trick of light, as if by magic. And all the while I'm tumbling, I am looking for a rabbit.

Maryanne Stahl's new novel, Forgive the Moon, is now available for pre-order from all major booksellers and will be in book stores June 4, 2002. Link to: www.maryannestahl.com for more information.