"Can I have a glass of water, please?"

In Kill Bill, Vol. 2, Beatrix Kiddo, bent on an elaborate and bloody vengeance, is buried alive by one of her would-be victims, with only a tiny flashlight to console her in her last, suffocating hours.

I'm not sure the Yankees even left us a flashlight last night.

Consequently, I'm not too proud to admit that I've revised my expectations for what I hope to get out of this series. I'm not hoping for a big finale, in which Mariano Rivera, playing the part of Bill, gets taken deep into the reeking Bronx evening by Manny Ramirez swinging a Hattori Hanzo bat. All I'm hoping for is that, flashlight or no flashlight, the Sox find a way to punch themselves out of their grave, gasp the open air again--however briefly, however futilely--and make an agonizing lurch back to Yankee Stadium, trailing cemetery sod all the way. A bit of spooky and unrelenting defiance is all I'm asking for here. If we must go down, and for reasons I fail to comprehend it seems we must, let's not settle for being buried alive.

*****

There's only so much to be said about a night like last night (or, for that matter a week like last week), and I haven't been reading around much for rehashings of the gruesome details. Of the few pieces that I have seen, Bob Ryan's column in today's Globe seems to me the best, the most successful balance of anger, grief, and sheer exhaustion, with little of the ugly pride in one's own misery you might get from other sources.