And as the evening sky paled and then turned orange and blue and the harbor lights came on outside my window, I found I couldn’t avoid memories of death itself. I’d beheld it. Felt it. Started to become it. My worst fear—other than dying—was that because I’d come so close to death, it would now accompany me everywhere like some ghastly pet. Or, more accurately, I was now the pet, and my new master was standing mutely with the lead watching me run out the clock.
