“Listen son,” said the Priest, trying to seem open and friendly but too scared to approach me lest I follow through with my threat and blow my own head off. “We’re all put on this Earth for a reason. We’re all here to serve some purpose. And once that purpose is fulfilled you’ve got no real reason to stick around, have you?”

Wait, what?

“I mean, think about it,” he went on. “When an artist finishes his grand masterpiece he doesn’t stick around, does he? He doesn’t loiter beside it at the gallery telling every damned passer-by ‘I did this.’ No. Fucker gets his shit in gear and moves on.”

“This is your plan?” I snapped. “This is how you stop me from killing myself?!”

“You seriously think I give two shits? You think I give any quantity of fecal matter what you do with that shotgun? Shit, shoot me if you like. It doesn’t make any fucking difference.”

The shotgun had never felt so heavy as it did at that moment. I felt it sag in my arms, the weight of it all. I set it down on the ground.

“Pfft. Pussy.”