Chapter 3

"I'm curious," said Durkan. "Why have ya given up?"

"I would rather spend my last moments sitting and quietly contemplating my life. If I'm going to die, I don't want to be crying and panicking."

"I can see what ya mean. It must be hard to try not to panic though. If ya think about your heart rate increasing and feeling terrified, doesn't it manifest physically?"

Tony sighed.
"Yes it does, hence the trying not to think about it".

"Don't beat yourself up, it's only natural. Every animal has self-preservation instincts, there is no need to fight it."

"That's my point," said Tony. "I am not an animal, I am a man. I want to meet my end with dignity if I can. The rational human mind is more sophisticated than an animal's. We can decide that we have had enough and let death end it all, like a terminally ill patient. We can make that choice."

"Are ya terminally ill?"

"No."

"Hmm, that is interesting. I am curious to see if you manage to hold your composure if the fire makes it through the door."

Tony went quiet. He sat on his hands to stop them trembling so violently.

"I'm sorry, that was accidentally cruel," said Durkan.

"It's all right."

"My point was going to be that I don't think that is it. At least not all of it. I think ya have given up. Why would you sit here and claim your end was inevitable and imminent if ya did not want to die?"

Tony stood up sharply. The desk chair toppled over backwards.

"I do not want to die," he said.

"Well then do something about it. In my experience, if ya want something to happen then ya have to put some effort into changing it. Obviously. If ya don't like where things are headed, do something to change the trajectory," said Durkan.

"It's not that," said Tony.
He started to pace across the office.

"It is my actions that got me into this mess in the first place," he said, his head hung low. "Everything I ever do just makes things worse. So I should just stop trying and failing to fix things."

"Ah, now it makes more sense, you're feeling sorry for yourself," said Durkan.

"Everything is my fault," said Tony. "This is my office, my company, my life's work," he said, waving his arms around at the dark room. "In the morning the bailiffs will be here to take away everything."

"Not any more they won't," chuckled Durkan. "There is nothing left to take."

Tony laughed too. It made him feel better. He had never fully appreciated how much laughter soothes one's soul. There was a lot of things he had not fully appreciated. The thought sobered his mood.

"I did try to fix it. I tried my hardest. I got desperate."

Durkan's bright blue eyes shone through the smoke with sympathy.

"It's hard when people rely on you," he said.

"Exactly, no one ever talks about how hard the pressure is to take. I've been putting off telling my employees for months. I knew they were going to lose their jobs and I knew I should tell them so that they can plan their next steps. I just couldn't do it. I couldn't look them in the eye and tell them I've failed."

"So ya would rather die than admit failure?" asked Durkan.

"No. I don't know, maybe," said Tony.

Durkan raised the wisp of vapour that constituted his eyebrow.
Tony returned to his upturned desk chair to pick it up off the floor. He sank heavily onto it.

"There is honour in death is there not?" he asked.

"Sometimes."

"I think there is. When people die you remember the good things about them. You look back on your memories with rose-tinted glasses. At funerals people cry and say nice things. Even people that didn't like you very much."

Durkan laughed with his wheezing bark again.

"That is true. I mean when was the last time ya saw a gravestone that reads, here lies John Doe, he was a right dickhead."

Both men laughed heartily. Durkan wheezed and the thickening smoke around them made Tony cough too.

"So ya are tryin' to kill yourself then?" Durkan asked.

"No, that wasn't my intention. It's not too bad an idea though. A grand suicide," said Tony.

"There is a certain nobility to it, the Samurai used to throw themselves on their swords to redeem the shame of their failure", said Durkan.
Tony looked glum at the mention of his failures leading to his situation.

"But there are two sides to every coin," continued Durkan. "Suicide is also seen as weak. The cowards way out, running away from ya problems, or attention seeking, like a lonely teenager in their bedroom."

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