My life is too tight, he wanted to say. My skin is too tight. The walls are too tight.

A seed of hope caught a taste of moisture. Some wishful kernel buried deep, where he was loathe to acknowledge it lest it poison or choke him, began to sprout.

Even in the darkness, his smile threw shadows.

I am about to die. It is September 11, and every cell in my body is acutely aware of my looming demise. The certainty of it. The inevitability. Not years from now, not weeks nor days. Moments.

Killing a man should be harder than waving a length of pipe in their direction. It should take long enough for one's conscience to get in the way.

Sometimes a thing needed opening before closure was found.

Ever since I was twelve, I dreamed of being an author. I just never had the fortitude to see any of my stories through to completion. I would start a book, get a few chapters in, and grow bored or get distracted by something else.