In the narrow rectangular room were his pieces. He had left them behind when he moved on. His mouth was the black matte fountain pen, smooth and cylindrical, with which he had authored the however many hundreds of letters that now littered the floor of this particular room. More accurately, they were all drafts of the same letter, but the distinction is unimportant. They were letters. His eye was the small black and white television set that sat propped in one corner, its screen split unevenly by a hairline crack. He always used to watch the evening news. When his vigil was finally culminated by the long-awaited words, that was the night he had broken the screen, scratched his only eye. His hands were the small synthesizer that occupied much of the room's remaining space. They had stuck to it and peeled away from his wrists when he departed, like so many grimy band-aids. And his heart was the old metronome; that was missing too, or rather left behind. He was a cripple now, that was certain, but it remained to be seen whether he would carry on, a prince among rats, or be consumed by the degeneracy to which he had condemned himself. Each successive tick was another word whispered in an alleyway, and each bandaged step brought him closer to an end.

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