I thought it might have reflected a homeless person's experience, but then read that Mark said this: “I wrote it after reading two stories in the newspaper one morning. The first covered an exhibition of photos from Ernest Shackleton’s failed Antarctic expedition, and the second described the studio apartment of a Seattle man who caused a city bus to go off the side of the Aurora Avenue Bridge when he shot the driver and then himself.”
I thought it might have reflected a homeless person's experience, but then read that Mark said this: “I wrote it after reading two stories in the newspaper one morning. The first covered an exhibition of photos from Ernest Shackleton’s failed Antarctic expedition, and the second described the studio apartment of a Seattle man who caused a city bus to go off the side of the Aurora Avenue Bridge when he shot the driver and then himself.”