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It must have fallen out of the vehicle when it started to roll because it was lying on the sand about thirty feet away. She pulled herself up and tried to make her body run for it. She fell twice on the way, the second time she was close enough to scramble on hands and knees.
    The phone was in the bag and perfectly fine. She called 911.
    “911. What is your emergency?”
    “My… my fiancé is caught underneath a dune buggy. I think his leg is… is…”
    “Where are you?”
    “On the beach. We’re… I don’t know.”
    Someone in one of the nearby houses had finally looked out and seen what was happening. He’d come running as fast as seventy-year-old bones could bring him and arrived just as she was telling the 911 operator that she didn’t know where they were. She couldn’t hear the man come up behind her in the wind, but she was in too much shock to be startled when he took the phone out of her hand and began speaking.
    “Near Spirit of Cape May. Beach patrol knows where that is.”
    She didn’t know how long it was before the ambulance arrived, but he was dead before they got there. She overheard one of the paramedics say to the other that, if she had applied a tourniquet that, it wouldn’t have saved his leg, but it might have saved his life.
    The resident who had come to her aid asked if he could take her somewhere. It was easy for him, with no medical training whatever, to recognize shock by the glazed and distant expression on her face.
    “Look here,” he said to the paramedics. “The young woman is in shock and needs to go to the hospital herself.”
    “Yes sir. Another unit is on the way.”
    “All right,” he said. “How long will that be?”
    “Hard to say.” They handed him a blanket from the ambulance. “Keep her warm until they get here.”
    The ambulance drove away. When no one had come an hour later, the good Samaritan said, “I’m going to get my car and drive it as close as I can. Stay here until I get back. I’m going to take you to the hospital myself.”
    On the way to the emergency room, he tried to get her to name someone he could call to come and help her. When she didn’t speak, he resorted to calling contacts on her phone.
     
     
    Sol had fought to keep his eyes open as long as he could. When they finally closed of their own accord and refused to reopen, he’d been freezing cold, lying on wet sand, with the worst imaginable sounds ringing in his ears, the combination of howling wind and Farnsworth weeping. He’d been angry about the entire turn of events and ready to take names.
    When he opened his eyes again he saw sunlight filtered through gently rustling leaves in a tree overhead. Looking around he saw that he was lying on grass so green it looked fake. He heard tinkling wind chimes and people nearby laughing like they were playing. Playing like children. The sound of a flute might have been coming from a distance, but he hoped he was imagining that part. The flute was just enough maudlin overkill to make him want to beg to be put out of his misery.
    He checked himself for pain, but no. There wasn’t any. Matter of fact all physical sensations were pleasant. Maybe even nice. Or they would be if the flute would find something else to do.
    He thought about sitting up and found himself jacking to a sitting position quickly and smoothly without feeling any muscle strain at all, which was a little weird because, on his best day, a sit up could still be felt.
    From a sitting position he could see idyllic pastoral scenes in every direction. Flora and fauna abiding in a state of otherworldly perfection, Spring-time harmony on steroids. Grassy hills, flowered paths, trees with silver-dollar-shaped leaves danced in the little breeze and birds sang in a way that would probably be pleasing to most people.
    Sol had already been losing his battle with flute irritation. The birds just ratcheted his annoyance up several notches. He was trying to remember how one gets birds to shut