Description: From THE COLORS OF MADELEINE #1: A CORNER OF WHITEShe leaned her bike against a wall and saw it again -- that fine line of white along the seam of the parking meter. She tried to pull it out with her fingertips but it was too deeply embedded. By holding two fingernails, one above and one below, she managed to grasp the edge of the paper and slowly draw it out. It was a thin piece of paper, folded in half. She unfolded it and read: Help me! I am being held against my will! She laughed aloud, looking at the base of the parking meter: the split concrete. "You're trying to escape," she said, then glanced around to check that nobody had seen her talking to a parking meter. The street was empty. It was growing dark, everything turning shades of grey. The paper in the palm of her hand made her shudder suddenly. I am being held against my will! What if it was real? A message from a stranger who was trapped? Strange place to put it, though, she thought, and smiled again. I am being held against my will. On the darkening path, she took paper from her backpack, and she wrote a reply to the note. She folded it and slid it into the parking meter until it too was nothing but a fine white line. Then she rode away.

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