These Dreams of You

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Viv hurtles forward in the back of the cab, hitting her head hard on either the ceiling or the seat in front. To her astonishment, the collision hasn’t sobered the driver but sent him further into a rage. He backs up the cab and floors the accelerator, careening again into the limo in front, and then does it again.

He keeps doing this until finally she grabs her purse, throws open her door, leaves behind her luggage and lurches from the vehicle. She half expects to leap into the path of oncoming traffic; the repeated crashes, however, have brought everything around her to a stop. She hits the ground, stumbles, picks herself up and keeps running, into the large glass building before her, and the only thing that could almost astound her as much as what she’s just been through is to discover that in fact she’s where she wants to be, in the Gare du Nord, from which the Eurostar departs for London.