A week ago Susan asked her friend Sarah. The question had not come up before, and she was curious. Perhaps there had been something on TV that brought the question to mind–a news story, a scandal. A war. Sarah answered, “Bush.” Susan did not know whether to believe her at first. “Really?” she asked.

“Yes, really.”

Susan stared at her friend, eyes wide, unbelieving.

Sarah shrugged. “I did it, okay? And I’d do it again if I could.”

Maybe Susan could believe it. But she did not want to. “That’s cold, man,” she said, which was true, even though Sarah was not a man. “Ice cold.”

Susan left Sarah’s house without another word, the door swinging softly shut behind her. She stepped outside and started walking down Salemo Street. It began to rain. Head down, hood up, she made her way through the darkening city. Her thoughts were elsewhere. The sidewalk, mishapen and cracked from the slow pressure of a nearby tree’s twisting roots, caught her foot. She stumbled. The rain–the cold rain–soaked through everything. The night was cold. The wind was cold. The whole goddamn world was cold.

Global warming, she thought.

A raven cawwed above her, and she wondered briefly if perhaps it was not a bird at all, but the cries of tortured detainees echoing off the tattered remnants of the ozone layer. Or was that taking everything just a little far?

She moved through the streets as dusk gathered its strength, the sky holding out against the night just long enough to paint itself gold and orange and red. And though she could barely see, she knew where she was going. It was someplace amazing. I can’t even describe it, and you would not believe me even if I could. But she knew, and each step brought her that much closer. Maybe it was Canada.

I wonder if she will ever come back, this girl who walked away from Sarah’s house. And I wonder, too: Should we search for her if she doesn’t?

(Apologies to Le Guin.)