"But no one will even know," he mutters, deciding against himself as the burgundy hue of a dwindling life stripped him bare right to the shallow blue pools of tear-stained eyes. The bitterness brimmed at his gut as the early moon of solemn June waits, vulture-like for the looming despair that follows after the storm has ravaged all that is left to hope for. The bottle sat nicely in the clammy, pale hands. The glowing hard print spitting at his vain pretensions. It says Tennessee's finest, soon to be his worst.

The hum of his wife's uneasy breathing came through the thin walls but he heard it as one with the cry of the night, unable to bail him out of the self-made prison of thoughts. He shifts and turns with the clock's dance but his mind went back to the beginning and the end. Slowly reaching a conclusion with the reality that failed him, his shaking hands went to the hateful curse that soothes every pain with a sardonic grin.  The liquid dagger slithered down his eager throat, a murderer settled on the ****. Licking his flaky lips one last time, he received a life of no return with the loudest sigh of regret.