"It won't work anymore. I'm just not happy." Mark rehearsed the lines to himself several times as he walked through the snow. The sidewalk was wet and dirty, covered with sand and salt that left stains on his boots. Each house he passed had an unmarked field of white in front of it, but he didn't notice that. His thoughts instead followed his feet along the sidewalk in front of him. The branches of the trees dropped clumps of snow on the sidewalk. He walked through the clumps that fell in front of him, stepping hard on the icy pieces. The sun was bright, though, not warm, and the reflection off the snow hurt his eyes.

"It's over," he said to himself, trying each line like an actor preparing for a role. "It's time to move on. I want to see other people. I need time to myself. You understand, don't you? It can't continue like this." As these words came into his mind, the true reasons for leaving Sally mocked them each. They had had some good times, but their differences had begun to drive a wedge between them.

Now, he couldn't understand why he had ever gone out with her. They'd met in a coffee shop, gone out together. She worked as a waitress, fancied herself a writer. They'd had some interesting discussions about books. Mark had kept up with his reading even after taking a job as a civil servant. He hung out in the coffee shop to keep up his contacts with literary people. He didn't think of himself as a writer, didn't know if he had any creativity at all. It was just a way to keep his mind from going slack with the repetitive paperwork of his job. At first, Sally was just what he was looking for. She was sharp, read the books he read, made insightful, often provocative, comments about them. Now, as he walked down the sidewalk, he pushed those discussions to the back of his mind.

Yes, he thought it would be different. But Sally had another side. Beside the literary qualities, she was principally in search of the next party. They went out almost every night, drinking hard with their friends. Literary discussions were forbidden in this crowd. Mark found his mind degenerating. He lost sleep, and his mundane job became more and more of a challenge. He begged off more and more. One night, she had called him to invite him to a party. It was already ten o'clock, and he couldn't come in late one more time.

"Listen, I can't go. I've got to get some sleep. I can't afford to miss another day."

Sally just laughed. Her husky voice over the phone sounded like a man's.

"Listen, life's too short. Carpe diem, my boy. What's this job really mean to you anyway?"

Mark snapped back, "It means a paycheck, which means rent, food on the table. Are these things so unimportant to you?"

Sally paused for a second. "Geez, Mark, why are you so insecure? I know you're smart. You deserve better. You're capable of more than this little nothing job. Something that gives you a creative outlet. You've got that buried inside: you keep telling yourself that this is good for you, but it's stifling you."

"So you think I should give it up and become another starving artist?"

"I wasn't saying that. You've got a lot of positive qualities, and enough brains to do anything. Why can't you accept that about yourself?"

"I really do need to get some sleep. I'll call you later."

He couldn't think about any of that now. He couldn't let his feelings cloud his judgment. His job was stable, secure, and, increasingly, it came between them.

Little things started to affect their relationship.

Mark stepped into the drying street, steam rising from it like smoke from a cigarette. He hated cigarettes. The smell of them clung to Sally: in her apartment, in her car, on her clothes, on her breath. The smell of old smoke rose from her every time he held her, rose like dust from an old rag doll. The taste of a wet ashtray met his lips every time he kissed her. She called them her "literary possession," and in the beginning he hadn't minded: it was all part of the larger bohemian picture he wanted to emulate. But as time went on the smudge of tobacco became larger and larger in his mind, until it covered everything else. It contributed nothing to her literary pursuits. She didn't write more, or write better, for having the butt hanging from her lips.

In fact, she didn't seem to write much at all. Living the life of a writer, the pose of the literati, seemed more important than writing. He'd seen some of her stories, some of her poetry, but nothing stuck in his mind as he walked down that snowy sidewalk. "I don't know when she'd have the time," he thought, "always late out at the parties, always sleeping until the time to go to work, then more partying." He had a vague idea of what it meant to be a writer, and Sally had none of the attributes. She was too easily distracted, too easily taken away from real work. It was hard for him to imagine her bent over a notebook, thinking of just the right word. He had definitely never seen it, but writing is not a public art, done in the presence of others; even he could appreciate that. Still, he thought it impossible she could be a real writer.