its ashes wet and done for; he gets back in the front seat, turns the key hard to the right, hears a rattle and remembers the hood wide open, the motor, the battery covered with snow; he says nothing, but takes the tire down from the roof and puts it back in the trunk, still open, its snow swirling up at him. He decides to leave the headlights where they are and gets back inside, locking the door behind him; piece by piece by piece he pushes all the stuffing he can find back into place, regretting the damage he's done to the cushions and walls and ceiling. He sits behind the wheel, and for the first time becomes aware of snow leaking in where the vent latch is gone; within the hour, frost starts forming on his cheek, flakes fall on his left shoulder, the bulb overhead continues to fade. With fingers strangely warm, he pulls the headlight knob and lowers his foot to the pedal: on-off, on-off, imagining the beams changing their tilt somewhere beneath the snow. A man just died under my nose; he sat down on the pavement eleven stories below and tried to hold his heart in place, as I leaned out to watch him die, careful to clutch the sill so I wouldn't beat him to death in mid-air. I closed the blinds, but not in time to keep his wife and children from screaming in the center of my desk. The dead rise