– Through desert and mesa, across endless miles of open range, we made our headlong way, steering by the telephone lines towards the mountains of Montana.

By now we had our own American voices that we used from time to time. It was kinda corny but that didn’t matter. People wanted to believe in us. Bonnie and Clyde. Kit and Holly. Doc and Carol. Mickey and Mallory. They were our role models and we were going to play them no matter what happened. We were like understudies.

This was the only way we could make ourselves understood. We were running from the law, crazy mixed-up kids from the wrong side of the tracks. We were sorry for what we done but we had no choice. Daddy, Momma – they couldn’t stand us being together, and that’s the God’s honest truth. That’s why we done what we done. We’re awful sorry but you folks gotta understand...

It seemed like we would never escape those voices and eventually we gave up trying. This is how it goes:

– Do it. Do Holly for me.

– We took off across that region known as the Great Plains. Kit told me to enjoy the scenery and I did...

– When the house caught fire, Grandma was still inside. She’d fallen asleep with the whisky bottle and didn’t wake up in time. We stood in the front yard and listened to her holler and scream. There weren’t nothing we could do about it. Daddy said at least it saved us the price of a proper burial. Cremation was just as good, he said, but he was like that. Always looking on the bright side. Eventually the day came when he decided to leave us at a gas station. He sent us inside to ask the man for help and when we come out he was gone. Took a full tank of gas with him as well, which I guess was his way of telling us how much we meant to him.

– Momma worked as a waitress up at the roadhouse, flirting with the cowboys and saving her tips. She would get back late at night and find us curled up on the settee in front of the television watching re-runs of The Virginian. Then one day she was gone too. Ran off with a truck driver from Montana. The last we saw of her, she was sitting on the back stoop in the grey dawn, a woollen blanket wrapped around her shoulders. It made for a very smooth transition. A nice easy cut.

Are we still the same people we were back then?

No, we left them behind a long time ago. You want to know if this is more real, if this is what it means to discover your true self? Yes, of course. It’s real alright. Dead real.