..never knew there were worse things than dying..

"A man stepped off from his stoop out onto the sidewalk. Free from the peripheral shelter of his entryway, a gust of high Pacific wind licked his naked cheeks. For a scant moment he closed his eyes and inhaled, paying careful attention to the irregular heartbeat that thumped helter skelter beneath his ribcage. His lungs filled with cypress scented breeze as he slowly turned right and headed down the hill. His footsteps echoed between the chipped pea green wall to his right and the faucet of running automobiles to his left. After a moment forever lost, he stood upright and erect before the crosswalk, lifting his chin to gaze forth, his eyes locked on the stars. Without taking counsel from the stoplight that his chin so dutifully ignored, his feet commanded him forth, dropping down from the curb into the pocmarked desolation of the road. His terrified fingers grasped with a stranglers passion the lower lip of his pea coat. Step by step, his feet moved one in front of the other, as if on a balance beam, toward the opposite curb. Were his eyes to have ears, perhaps they would have strayed from the soft urban glow that blunted the stars. Rather his ears faced the shrill symphony on their own. The howl of horns, the screech of tires, the many voices yelling insults, and the ever erratic thumping in the center of his chest bade his ears wish for respite. Soon, his feet lifted him over the opposite curb onto the peaceful sidewalk, but not after near revolt from the remainder of his being. Sharply, he pivoted on his forward foot, spinning a quarter turn to his right. In his mind, a Spanish polka inhibited communication between his many parts, so his knees felt a new freedom. With the abandon of a racing Australian, they alternated to and fro, pumping perpendicular to his waste, propelling him forth. His chin needed to spy once again on the familiar ground, so it drooped, lazylike, to its natural position. With blinding electricity, neon signs raced past him on all sides, storefronts rounding into his periphery with each new lift of his Cossack knees.
At last his destination was reached. At once, stillness overcame him. Next to him lie the entryway to a convenience store. Behind the counter, a sinewy Kenyan chuckled knowingly, spitting between the wide gap of his yellowed grin. He raised a piece of parchment, waving it slowly left to right, before setting on fire with a rusty zippo.
The Spanish Polka ceased. At once all this man's faculties found eachother, acting toward one common and irreversible ambition. His leap instantly breached the stores entryway, his hands fast finding the wide forhead of the jesting Kenyan. Seconds later, a mere half skull rested in a bed of gore upon the counter. Quickly, he dipped the fired portion of parchment into the ever widening pool of blood.
Satisfied that this precious scrap had been extinguished, he opened it to read...."