Here I am. Sitting on the sands of a damp beach. Its sand cloys at my legs and my palms as I stare out and into the steel-grey ocean lapping against the shore. The hiss of the water drawing back again, again, again seems to pull me with it, though it only gets further from me as the tide goes out. I let my eyes fall shut as a fine mist of rain begins to fall, freshwater tears against my face nothing but a shoddy substitute for the sorrow that refuses to fall from my lashes. Overcome with exhaustion, I fall to my side and curl my body hopelessly against the world.

With the rough sand this close to my face, I can almost imagine that I'm observing a vast landscape, stretching out before me. Hills and vales in the sand, hiding their secrets from all but the closest observers. As if I could find them. If only. Perhaps they would tell me which way to go. Instead, I press my face harder into the frigid sand, as though attempting to draw some small warmth or comfort from it. Instead, all I do is create another valley in its tempestuous landscape. Even its motionless geography seems more vivacious and mutable than me.

Eventually, I begin to notice the sand fleas. They are small and energetic creatures, jumping from dune to dune across their tiny landscapes. One misjudges the ground and lands on the side of an unstable ridge, disturbing the precarious balance. It doesn't even have time to jump again before the sand sloughs of, nearly burying it. But, after a brief pause, it jumps off again to face new perils in the sand. It seems to me that they're a lot like us in this way. Directionless, for the most part. Leaping with abandon into the unknown. And, when everything falls down around them, forced to keep going, pushing off the ground once more into the great unknown. But no matter how high they get, they cannot soar forever. And so we all fall, again and again. Until we are buried. Until we give up jumping. Or, perhaps, until we learn to seek a higher ground.

I wish you'd die

But not before

Every person that you know

Hates the very ground below

Your withered feet

As you decay

And curse the awful path you go.

"No reason to make this ugly," I soothe. We're in an alley and he has a gun pointed at my chest. "Just tell me what you want and when can both be on our way."

"You were following me," he states, flatly.

"What?" I ask, acting as confused as I can muster. I need to pretend that this information has completely thrown me off if I'm going to have any hope of getting out of this alive.

He stares into my eyes, and begins to intone, "Your name is Robert Thomson. You are thirty-four years of age. You have been following me for two weeks and five days. On Monday, you suspected I knew about you, and ceased following me for two days. Today, you were planning on knocking me out as I walked past 5th street for my evening walk. You were going take me to your boss, where I would be interrogated. When you had gotten what you wanted from me, you were going to leave me dead in my home, with a heroin needle stuck in my arm." His condemnations fall like heavy stones to seal my tomb. "You have already planted a small stash of heroin in the small desk next to my door. There is a larger supply hidden in my hall closet, behind the towels on the top shelf." He pauses, expression almost unchanged, but seeming just a bit colder than it had been. "State your defense."

I blink and step slightly backwards in surprise, my back brushing against the cold brick wall behind me. I adopt an expression of horror and shock "I don't know what-"

"State. Your. Defense." He cuts me off.

"I was working under orders." I answer. "There was nothing I could do, or I would have been terminated." I pause and glance away for a second, before staring calmly back at him. "It was your life or mine."

"I understand." He bows slightly. "Thank you for your honesty. You understand, of course, that I cannot let you leave?"

"Of course," I respond, returning his bow. "It's been an honor working with you."

"And with you." He lets slip a small, grim smile.

"Shall we?" I ask.

"Indeed." Is his only reply.

He raises the gun to point at my head. I close me eyes.

There is a sudden, sharp sound.

And my whole perception fades to nothing in an instant.