In Over Her Head by Elsie Russell - Parnasse.com

so he wrenched open the door. The moon peeked above the yawning
Alps, their dark teeth waiting to swallow her in one gulp. He threw the
cigarette he had shared with the wind into the valley, and took out his
handkerchief.
So crazy again, he had to take care of business! He held onto
the side of the car as it shot out of a tunnel and across another
vertiginous concrete and steel bridge above a black alpine chasm, and
he did take care of business, alone with the full moon raging above, her
sad mutilated face adoring the sun the whole time, and although he
could never reach so far, he kissed her and prayed to be with his
beloved again at least once before he fell himself into the abyss. But the
moon wanted to expose her dark side to him before she was swallowed
by the mountains, and wrenched him into an intimate understanding of
total and complete blackness, of her true self, alone and dead for so
long, an understanding he could fully share but never would have let
surface in waking life, and then he was limp and alone again with a dry
handkerchief and the stars blinking away one by one until the train
screeched into Ventimiglia.
After breakfast in the club car he stepped down at Genoa and
bought cigarettes and some newspapers. Back in his velvet seat he read
the latest La Stampa, Corriere della Sera, and Gazzetta dello Sport,
dozed off, and next thing he knew he was looking past the oil refineries
of Mestre to the rain-fuzzed mirage of La Serenissima.
He noticed, as he stepped from the landing in front of Stazione
Santa Lucia into the water taxi, that the canal water was a lighter green
than he remembered, the same green as her eyes.
The Gritti room, overlooking the Canal, was on the second
floor for a grander view. He flung open the windows right away and the
damp salty air cleaned the dead room of its mélange of old lady
perfumes. The bells from the Campanile rang but she was not with him
to hear them or put her little machine on the sill to capture the sound.
Santa Maria della Salute was just across the water so he prayed in that
direction for Penny's health and protection.
Back at the armoire he arranged his suits. He realized as he
untied the laces of his new Lobb shoes, that he had no galoshes.
Slipping off his shoes and socks, he wiggled his toes; a pedicure was
long overdo, but then, devil's claws were perhaps not so inappropriate
at this time.
He collapsed on the bed. Staring at the ceiling, propped up on
pillows and sipping his mini-bar whiskey, his thoughts turned to Coney
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