A middle age man sat alone, looking through a window as the rain continued its redundant assault on the autumn grass and newly paved roads. Lying on his lap was a .357 magnum Smith and Wesson revolver. There was one bullet in the chambers. This was part of a game he had been playing with himself for the the first day of each of the last ten months. A one man Russian roulette.

He didn't like the thought of him doing it himself. He wanted there to be at least some part of his demise to be determined by some other force. He always had problems initiating change.

Maybe that was why he sat in his study pondering his grim fate. But in all truthfulness, he had no idea why he felt this way, and if he did know, he probably wouldn't be in this situation. He didn't feel anything. He hadn't for some time.

He looked back on the worst day of his life. The day when his office was instantly engulfed in a fiery inferno after a jetliner's left wing cut through his floor like a hot knife through butter and he was spared by his tardiness. From a distance, he looked up in horror at his colleagues while they cried for help through the thick black smoke. They clung to the windows for dear life, the way a terrified child would to it's mother's leg. When he came home that day smothered in grey dust, he said nothing to his wife and locked himself in the study where cried for five hours.

Yet now, he sat in the same room some thirteen years later and even after such a powerful memory had rushed through his brain, the emptiness within him did not cease.

He felt some disgust for his life. Particularly for what he had created. The colossal shrine of bullshit that cost an obscene amount of cash to construct. Everyone else on the street was no different. Big money mansions and flamboyant luxury vehicles could be found in every direction. Overspending is the key to life in this oasis of a New York City suburb. He lived in the land of stockbrokers and big-shot lawyers. Decadence and delusion. Milk and honey.

He was in the business-business. The profession of making money for the sake of making money. He didn't have any passions. He didn't have any hobbies. He only had his work, but he wasn't working for anything. Upon retrieving his paycheck, he would deposit the majority of it in a bank account where it sat there, never to be seen again. He was making money just to have it. If he could just recognize the infinite patterns of his work life, perhaps he could break out of the perpetual rat-race that is life as a working stiff. But as is typical for the the mindless drone, the man finds no escape from the strong current of his humdrum life style besides the one that sat on his lap.

He spun the cylinder, locked it in place and held the cold, metal barrel of the .357 up to his temple and closed his eyes. He took a deep breath and muttered the odds, "one in six."