All over the coast

The eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg nailed her in the solar plexus and for a moment green lights at the end of docks swum before her. Smiling winningly, she breathlessly stepped past him. To her horror her heart was pounding like a panicked bird trapped in a house, making her thoughts into zeppelins colliding and tangling themselves up in their haste to stay out of reach of the gorilla scaling the tower.
At the end of the week, she revisited drives to Toledo and Detroit in winter. She marveled over how much significance a silent phone could have. So restless, she shifted through the ashes of friendships one more time. As ever, her hands shook, and her weary eyes watched the horizon of a clear sky with mistrust. The loan hadn’t come through. That was disaster enough for now. She didn’t feel like doing anything, calling anyone, eating anything. Her heart lay stunned on the ground after two bouts of beating against the windowpane in a panic. She pried an ornate silver key out of the sandy soil, embedding dirt deep under her nails. Rubbing her thumb over the pattern crest she wiped it clean. She worried she would have to pawn it. And Martin Espada knew all about pawn shops.