its late at night and i've switched off the engine a long way south of town where i know there are hardly any vehicles. i sit for a while, listening to the radio and smoking a cigarette, ashing it out of the window from time to time and watching the reflected glow of the coal in the windscreen whenever i take a drag. after a while i switch on the dim cabin lighting and collect the garden hose and rags from the bag on the passenger's seat, open my door and walk to the back of the vehicle. my breath makes clouds in the cold night air. i bend down to the exhaust pipe - it's cool enough to touch now. i unravel the hose and feed it up into the exhaust pipe, tear the rags into smaller pieces and gingerly stuff them into the pipe around the hose. i open the rear driver's side door, wind the window down a bit and insert the other end of the hose, then stuff the remaining rags into the gap at the top of the glass and wind it back up as far as it goes. i reach into the driver's side from the open door and turn the engine on, close the door, walk around to the other side and get into the front passenger's seat. i'm starting to get sleepy now as the tablets kick in. i push the seat back and ball my discarded jacket up into a pillow which i prop against the cold glass of the window. an envelope sits between the seats under the handbrake along with my licence and passport. i feel like i felt when i was little, driving home with mum and dad late at night in the rain with my head against the glass in a kind of semiconscious stupor, the street lights going by refracted through the tracery of rain on the glass, my heavy body rocking around, the sound of the column shift and the wipers beating. and then when we were home, my father's strong arms lifting me out and carrying me through the doorway with my legs hanging limp, into the familiar smells and down the long cool hallway to my own place, where i fall all alone into a deep deep sleep.