He knew this, did not know how to change it, and for all his efforts at callousness, could not keep creeping fears from sprouting in his mind. He was like a man on a tight-rope through dense fogs of desolation. Did hope lie forward, or back? It might have been easy but for thoughts of Ara that still came to him in his despair. If only she would come and kneel beside his deathbed, kiss his brow and say it was all right. Then he could surrender his spirit and be at peace. But she did not come, and because of it, the tiniest part of him still held on.
Four days out from Dutch Rembrandt/van Gogh, his mind and body together reached an impasse. His intestines throbbed with a dull ache that pervaded all with weakness and chills. The sleep lozenges he counted on to end the horror of each day had begun to show side-effects, and he could hardly take one in mid-afternoon. So he struggled on, eyes wincing yellow weakness as he stirred uncomfortably in his Group Leader's chair, amid the upper bridge of the first destroyer. Whatever that might mean. Until a surge of liquid anguish overpowered him, and he knew he could not go on.
So that was the way of it. At the bitter last his pride was broken, and his will rendered useless.
He got up from the chair, leaning one arm heavily on the padded rest, and waited for the tiny squares to pass from before his eyes. Then mumbled something to his exec about IN MY QUARTERS, CALL ME IF THERE IS ANY NEED. And turned and walked weakly, sweatily from the enclosure.
As he made his way down the long corridor to the elevator leading downwards, he tried dully to reckon the number of lozenges it would take to end his life. He had perhaps fifteen. That would have to cover it. . .only. . . the convulsions would be unpleasant if he failed. He stepped into the wide double cylinder, mumbled "Six," and felt the world fall away beneath him.
That he was not thinking clearly he knew. That his death was at hand he also knew, but could not make the words form into any kind of meaningful pattern in his mind. All was dark, blank, and unintelligible. Not the slightest emotion stirred inside him. Stepping once more into a formless corridor, he walked past floating gray shapes he imagined must be men, and came to the portal of his latest hell. The door opened silently before him.
Looking into room he saw upon his dresser the vial, the photograph, and the nearly empty glass of water. He studied the trinity for a time before entering. Almost it would have seemed poetic, something from the epics….. Coming closer he looked first at the one, then at the other, then back again. To the photograph. . .of his lover. Why was she so damned beautiful? Even now.
Through countless layers of dust, his heart throbbed a single pang of pain and remorse, causing in its turn the irritation of a parched corner of one eye. From some unseen source, where he had been sure that no moisture lay, there came a gurgling bubble of mud, followed by a tiny flow of water. A desert spring in the midst of choking sands. He lifted the frame, brought it gently, then crushed it to his chest, and let out a sob of life that told him he could not yet die.
He drank the water in the glass, down to the bitter and confused sediment. Then with tears, real tears in his eyes, he heard as if from far below the ground his own voice, set loose this utterance.
"I cannot do it. It is not for me to say when all is lost. Dear God, please help me hold on."