He slowly sank back into the frame chair, so uncomfortably angled into his back. The long grey ash speckled and dangled on end of his cigar, two inches long and held by distant physical memory of it's hand wrapped pride.

"The damn thing's gotten wet, and doesn't smoke so well..." he muttered, setting the smoking element in his lap delicately, keeping the burning tip from his uniformed leg.

The air hung tensely about him, stuffy and motionless, a turgid air populated with the grey cloud of his cigar. He had purposely closed all the windows, forcing the oppressive atmosphere that he disliked so. A slate wall closed his pupils, the whites wide and veined lightly red. Occassionally they'd slide to his side, examining the curio, a chink in the wall, the soot stains of his curtains, and ultimately, the low glowing tip of his cigar.

"A million of them. A million, and I smoke one wet. How much I've wasted..." The words formed dully in his head, so slowly that an inch seemed to form in the grey of the cigar between thoughts. He'd been this way for days now, one cigar after another, devoid of food and water, enveloping and clouding his existence to a dull shade.

He mused behind: "She held up her hands to me. Palms out, she held them to me, so effete, so attractive. Each nick cost me dearly, but could I contain myself?" A shudder racked his frame, from the deepest depths of his body out to the very actions of his orbits. He quickly picked up his cigar and took a long drag, filling his lungs as deeply as they were capable, then slowly exhaling. He calmed, and again took on the palled shade that a moment prior had defined him.

No clocks ticked, nothing marked the passage of time. Of itself the slow current of his mind met its emptying point, and he shifted about, setting the cigar into a tray. Drawing open a drawer, he lifted a cardboard covered blade from within. "This is like it." A water drop from the ceiling struck the corner of the room. "No, death is too fine a prize for me." He unsheathed the blade and undid his pants.