“I believed that I was braver than I really am, is what it boils down to,” he said.
“Who doesn’t?” I said.
“I really thought I could do it. I knew that someday I’d run out of things to do, things to see. I knew that I’d finish some day. You remember, we used to argue about it. I swore I’d be done, and that would be the end of it. And now I am. There isn’t a single place left on-world that isn’t part of the Bitchun Society. There isn’t a single thing left that I want any part of.”
“So deadhead for a few centuries,” I said. “Put the decision off.”
“No!” he shouted, startling both of us. “I’m done. It’s over.”
“So do it,” Lil said.
“I can’t,” he sobbed, and buried his face in his hands. He cried like a baby, in great, snoring sobs that shook his whole body. Lil went into the kitchen and got some tissue, and passed it to me. I sat alongside him and awkwardly patted his back.
“Jesus,” he said, into his palms. “Jesus.”
“Dan?” I said, quietly.
He sat up and took the tissue, wiped off his face and hands. “Thanks,” he said. “I’ve tried to make a go of it, really I have. I’ve spent the last eight years in Istanbul, writing papers on my missions, about the communities. I did some followup studies, interviews. No one was interested. Not even me. I smoked a lot of hash. It didn’t help. So, one morning I woke up and went to the bazaar and said good bye to the friends I’d made there. Then I went to a pharmacy and had the man make me up a lethal injection. He wished me good luck and I went back to my rooms. I sat there with the hypo all afternoon, then I decided to sleep on it, and I got up the next morning and did it all over again. I looked inside myself, and I saw that I didn’t have the guts. I just didn’t have the guts. I’ve stared down the barrels of a hundred guns, had a thousand knives pressed up against my throat, but I didn’t have the guts to press that button.”