It is said that a man about to die reviews, in an instant, the whole of his past life. Nick, without the hope of death, had other thoughts. As the taller of the two blank-faced thugs in western dress leaned down to slash the rope which boutnd his ankles together, he suddenly saw the years that stretched ahead. And he saw a future peopled by the beautiful girls he would never have, a furture in which he would wander lonely as a cloud and as useless as a broken shell. It was an ugly picture.

1966.