Man: I welcome now the noose. Breathing in spite of the caustic taste of the air was a gesture as vain as smiling just to remember what it feels like. It took far too many sleepless nights for me to bite down and accept my fading will to live. Praying unto the inescapable end, I’m slipping more and more each day. The feel of another’s skin once taken for granted, now my sole desire in this world. Drift through life’s endless rubble, no direction, frail and faltering – to drown in debris. No heat from a hand, no wind from a whisper, just the ache of an absence. I grew old with only ghosts to grasp my hands, with only sobs to sing me to sleep. No blinding light. No restful night. Misery, agony, release. I embrace the end.