In the corner of the room, the clock that should be ticking indifferently seems to slow down, as if to mock my fast approaching death.

            “Thirty-one minutes left,” the clock cackles. It is laughing at me. Encompassed in darkness, it turns into the face of the man in my drawing this morning. It turns into the face of the man in who cannot be seen in the shadow of the room, where he sharpens his chisel, waiting for time to pass.

            “Nineteen minutes left,” the clock now whispers to me. My madness is only nearing, faster and faster. I try to observe myself in the vague reflection of the window. All I manage to see are my deep eyes looking back at me.

            “James, what do you do for a living?” The sudden break of silence startles me, leaving me to stare blankly at the voice coming from the shadows.

            “I- I beg your pardon?” I manage to stutter in response.

            “I said ‘What do you do for a living?’ ” Atkinson repeats, aggravated. His round silhouette looms from the unlit workspace, and it advances a few paces in my direction.

            I sit in shock. I am made almost immobile, for a flash of lightning reveals Atkinson, with his chisel over his head prepared to strike.

            “One minute left, one minute left, one minute left!” The clock screams and laughs menacingly in my imagination.

            “So who sent you here?! Was it the FBI? The Secret Services? You! You thought you could go up against some one like me! You thought you could go up against a murderer!” Sweat rolls off the creases of Atkinson’s plump forehead as he ignites with rage.

            “No, no, you have to understand, I stumbled across here by accident!” My heart is racing. I feel as though it will burst at any moment.

            “Why are you trying to sell more of your story? I sure as hell didn’t believe the first one.  And you say you stumbled? You just stumbled across my lawn, with a picture of me, claiming to be the person whose name I engraved in the tombstone. Well I have a question for you. Why haven’t you called for back up? Why haven’t you-” the door slowly begins to open, interrupting Atkinson’s speech. His wife’s fair eyes peer into the room. She is taken over with terror at the current scene as I had been.

            The heavy man is swift to respond. He grabs her by the collar of her night blouse, and suspends her delicate frame. He stabs her. Shrieks echo the room for a moment, and then her thin corpse falls to the floor.

            I watch, horrified, as the man twists the bloody chisel out of his wife’s throat. He glares at me. Through his viscous eyes, I conclude that it is my turn next.

            My thin fingers are trembling now. Twelve o’clock has passed. Nostalgia is taking over me. And with this, you may assume my passing on, if I never write another word. 

Sincerely,

J. C. Withencroft