She danced down the street, humming the tune to herself, carrying it out into the snow from the theater, shuffling her feet through the dust on the sidewalks. The sky was cloudless now with the snow fallen, though the lights from the city leeched the stars from the sky. A thin yellow moon was just over the top of the grubby buildings across the street. She whirled through the crowd, avoiding crashing into any of the other patrons through long practice. A couple watched her speculatively, which was no part of any plan of hers, so she sobered her gait and trotted down the sidewalk to her car, the song still playing itself in her head, fading, fading.

She thought of coffee, and then of a bar, and then of calling someone, perhaps, but rejected each idea as it occurred to her. Better, she thought, to go home and turn on the lights that bloomed so sweetly through the windows and compose herself on the couch with a book. The image delighted her.

She swung onto the eastbound highway, and drove out of the lights. The stars though faint could be seen here, the brighter ones, through the cold air.