He stares at me all through the long silence of the night, the tiny candle of his soul burning blue and shining softly out from his eye sockets and gaping mouth.  His long ropy hair sometimes falls to obscure those beams, but it’s never quite enough, not for peace, not for rest.  He never says anything, not out loud.  But I hear a voice in my mind that isn’t my own reciting a monotone litany of petty atrocities committed against, seemingly, one pathetic and all-unknowing soul.

And when I awaken in the morning, having slept for all of thirty-seven minutes, I find only sulfur-scented sand in a tidy heap on the seat of the straight-backed chair that has inevitably been moved in front of the door, facing the foot of the bed.