Imagine, you are curled up in bed listening to the night's last embers popping in the

wood-burning stove.

And this is your favorite time of night, when you have the world all to yourself.

The last darkness before the dull grey winter light starts to spread across the frost on

the window.

This is your time.

And you fill it with prayers.

Sure your mom taught you now I lay me down to sleep, but you were never the kind of girl for

coloring in the lines or following the script.

So now you fire off impromptu hopes and wishes like spent shells from a machine gun, breathless,

everything you hope for and want to be.

What they all add up to one thing, that your voice be heard out there in that dead grey

dreary world.

Eventually the last embers die out and you dip into sleep.

Until you hear your mom come in.

What's she doing here?

Mom, what's going on?

It's time to go.

Where?

Some place special.

You sit crammed into the last row of a greyhound bus with your brothers and sisters.

All bundled tight in your worn and dirty winter coats.

...