MICKEY AND WANDA WERE DRIVING UP TO THE MOUNTAINS for their first camping trip together. The sun had just gone down. Mickey was driving and adjusting to the headlights on the winding mountain road. No radio playing. Wanda was mostly asleep in the passenger seat, a thin gray blanket over her shoulders, her knees pulled up against her chest, her bare feet resting on Mickey’s right thigh.

They were supposed to start sooner, but it took longer than expected to purchase camping gear and all the food necessary. A disagreement over how much meat to bring along cost them another hour.

This would be the first time they were ever alone for an extended period. They met as college freshmen only three weeks ago, finding themselves enrolled in the same Introduction to Philosophy course and randomly seated next to each other.

They found they both liked the same philosophers and when comparing textbooks discovered that they had both highlighted the same homework passages. During classroom debates and Socratic questioning sessions, Mickey and Wanda discovered that in addition to having interests in common, they also had compatible differences.

Wanda was empathetic and artistic. She was critical of utilitarianism and pragmatism, leaning more toward humanism and aesthetics. Mickey prided himself on his logic and common sense; he was critical of mysticism and form without function.

Their differences led them into many interesting conversations loaded with points and counterpoints that eventually expanded beyond the classroom into the cafés, restaurants and theaters around their college town.

They debated abortion, capital punishment, socialized medicine, theology, the role of art, the bare necessities of life — no topic was taboo. Either of them seldom won a debate, but they did have a knack for pulling each other out of the fringes and closer to the middle, closer to compromise. That endeared them to each other.

As far as kissing and necking and making out, yes, they did get around to that in due time, but for the first two weeks they were content to eat, talk, even dance, and spend evenings together, but then go their separate ways back to their dorms.

The kissing and smooching did finally start one night at the bowling alley after Wanda, who had never bowled before, rolled her third gutter ball in a row, and Mickey, whose dad was a professional bowler and lived above a bowling alley, bowled his third strike in a row. Mickey was feeling so stupendous he impulsively took Wanda’s head in his hands and planted a doozy on her that left her reeling.

By the 10th frame they had found six other opportunities to kiss. Strikes, spares, gutter balls, fouls, it didn’t matter, it was all magically kissable. Mickey and Wanda found they quite enjoyed each other’s intimacy. It wasn’t long after that night that they decided to run off for the weekend and live together in a tent by a lake in the woods for two days. They were falling in love.

The sky grew darker. The road grew curvier. Mist was forming among the boughs of the evergreens and wafting over the roadway.

That’s when Mickey ran over the rabbit. He had no chance to react. As he rounded a blind curve the bunny jumped out from behind a shrub directly into the path of his vehicle. He couldn’t even let off the gas.

As he drove over it, there was a subtle tha-bump and it was over. He was rolling along and he kept on rolling. He turned quickly, pensively over at Wanda. Her eyes were closed, her head tilted back against her balled-up jacket. It looked like she’d missed this little tragedy, but then her jaw began working, her face started moving, and she opened her eyes. She looked at him without moving her head.

“What was that?”

“What was what?”

“What was that bump? It sounded like you ran over something. Did you run over something?”

“Yeah,” said Mickey, keeping his eyes fixed forward. “Something in the road.”

“What was it? A log?”

Why prevaricate any longer. He was a philosopher. “No. It was a rabbit. Darn thing jumped right in front of me. I couldn’t stop in time. It went right under the car.”

“Did you kill it, or just wound it?”

Mickey shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s dark.”

“So the poor thing could be lying back there dying slowly in pain. You didn’t think to at least stop and check on it?”

“I’m not stopping on a dark, winding road to look at a rabbit. We’re late already. Besides, it wouldn’t be safe.”

“Sure it would. There’s plenty of room to park on both sides of this road.”

Mickey subtly drove a wee bit faster as he spoke, hoping distance would favor him. “What if we stopped and it was only wounded? What would you expect me to do? Take it to a vet? Pay for surgery? Go back to town? Run over it again?”

Continued next week …

Steve Gibbs teaches at Benicia High School and has written a column for The Herald since 1985.