He felt a heat flush his face, cheeks full of blood as he lumbered up the steps of the metal fire escape, a gas can in each hand. His pulse grew erratic as the full realization of what he was there for sank in. He was having an out of body experience, but he wasn’t hovering over himself; he was hundreds of yards away in the dark, gazing through a telescope at his own feverish body.

He came back to his consciousness in a rush and found himself looking through a window at the family within: son, daughter, mother and infant—father. They played a game together and enjoyed each other’s presence, the room full of familial spirit. Suddenly, his heart grew heavy with regret for what he had to do. He hesitated; he knew he was sick. In the distance, he heard the blades of a police helicopter chopping the brisk city air. Maybe he should turn himself in? They could get him help, get him a doctor—

Instantly, he was looking through a window made of time. He saw himself in that room, just a child as he looked down the barrel of a loaded revolver, his father’s finger on the trigger, his mother’s body, bloody and broken, lifeless in the doorway. He couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe as he watched his father’s thumb cock the hammer. His breath choked him as he heard the clicks of the gun. A scream tore itself from his throat as the chambers rotated and that hammer fell—and, as abruptly as it started, the memory was gone. Replaced with the happy lie he had observed moments before. Sweat covered his being, it soaked into his clothes and plastered his hair to his face. His grip on the gas cans tightened, and, in that moment, he knew… he knew he couldn’t let those kids go through that same betrayal.

So on he lumbered, and below him the city was alive; ants scurried without purpose beneath incandescent suns, and great mechanized scarabs shuffled about in an endless dance. Their mechanical clicks and whirs and horns clashed with the ants’ organic cries, and created a cacophony of energy, a capitalistic orchestra conducted by daemons inside translucent monoliths of steel and mirrored glass. As he traversed one of the fire escape’s landings, two cries gained clarity above the rest. Shouting from the apartment next to him. He paused a moment to listen…

“Are you really gonna start this shit with the dishes again?” a man shouted.

“I just want you to do them for once! For once in your miserable life, Jerry!” a woman roared back.

“Well, maybe my life wouldn’t be so miserable if I wasn’t married to such a stupid, frigid bitch!” he returned.

“My mother was right! I should’ve just married David when I had the chance! Then I wouldn’t be stuck in this shithole with you!”

In the midst of the yelling a compulsion gripped him, and though he tried, he could not resist as he gazed into the apartment. As his eyes gravitated between the curtains he was again transported into memory and saw his parents, his father towered over his mother as she cowered beneath his massive frame.

“What the fuck did you just say to me?” his father bellowed. “What did you just say, you stupid bitch?”