The hole in his chest made a hissing sound, like a tired old steam train grunting into a far away station, and as I twisted and pulled the knife out, the grating sound of steel on bone made me wince and brought with it the image of my gnarled old third grade teacher, Mrs. Oppenheimer, searing into the back of my retina. That old bitch dragging her whore-red talons across the blackboard would give me nightmares for years.

He dropped like a stone. I'll never forget the look of pure shock - pure what-the-fuck shock! - that flickered across his face as he went down. To this day, I still don't know why I did it. Was it the heat? The hottest summer on record (EVER!) that sucked even the very reasoning out of a person? I don't know. I regret it for sure, but that doesn't make a rat's ass difference now.

1932 was forever ago. The Hindenburg had just gone down in a ball of German engineered flame and Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were smoking up the silver screen. I am an old man now and I've paid for the heat. I've paid a lifetime for a moment's madness. My days left in this place now are few and I will die with the sound of a hole in a man's chest hissing in my ears.