Are you suffocating? I heard a voice calling out from the street last night, but it wasn't you. You were laying in a cold white bed with a tube shoved into your throat. This is not the way that it should have ended between you and me: faint voices fading down the wire. Everything in the room is so quiet. They close your mouth and take you off the machine. Consider this a moment of reason, from the abyss into which you're about to fall. You are not strong enough. It's not murder, but it feels like it when I let go. It's far too late, too late to bring you back for long, too late for this weak indulgence. See how I have learned! My mouth is shut like a lock. It's far too late. No penitence or labor will bring you back after the harshest judge has spoken. Are you conscious? Your eyes move, but they don't track anything here inside the room. They're focused on a great white light or a face from long ago. I try, but I can't see a thing and I promise, nothing's there. If you can breathe at all, respond. Or, better by far, just give in, like we had asked. Any moment now you will find, on your back with your eyes wide open, that everything is revealed, every wrong has been forgiven, and you'll never be alone, ever again, ever again. I owe you this: to release you from this husk, with no hope of better days, but only an end to pain.