I did not have time to process or to allow pity to encroach. Time is flexible- made up of little moments, long and small, that stretches in times of misery but speaks terse and moves in vapor when we only want something solid. The clock in my head was broken, ticking with an elongated rhythm. I stumbled out into a beat-up alley. Dirt and grime entertained shadows up brick walls-- the original color indiscernible at this late hour.

Trash. Not the type I was used to seeing, canvased the area. There were small glass bottles stained as if taken from churches and then heated, turned, and formed to make beakers. Most lay broken upon the muddy ground but some stood whole. There is a serenity to colors dancing through glass towards the end of twilight and that serenity painted the walls in an eerie blend of colors. Mostly yellows, and reds from what I can remember.

I think I found some comfort there, in that moment, as if willing an omen to come to pass. The rest of the trash were smaller things. Linen diapers. Clay urns that once contained food. A trash receptacle. Empty beer bottles and broken signs. There were more rudimentary things that littered that alley but I refuse to discuss such things. The smell, for all its foulness, had a tinge of cleanliness to it that I do not have remembrance of before.

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There was a light rain. I wished for a hat, something broad-rimmed, and a cigar.

“Have a chit, mister?” I flinched in my surprise. A figure emerged from the behind the trash bin, predatory in form but whose movement gave a sense of hesitancy.

It was a wolf. Taller than myself that walked on its hind legs. There was something primal about that moment, about that feeling. I have always had cunning. I have lost fights but I do not begrudge it. It is all the same, but at that time I felt fury and pain and loss unleashed in a half-forgotten bellow. The sort of noise from a dream, as you find yourself walking and at the same time drowning underneath an ocean, fighting to release your fear. A change occurred then for in an instant the fear washed away and I was only left with a primal fury and an infusion of strength.

Something in my gaze, stance, or smell must have shifted as the wolf yipped and fled. A broken wolf then. I felt remorse.

As is the way of things, the alley opened up to a broader street. I looked upon a different world. Everything was strange. Stars scattered the night sky but in obtuse patterns. The architecture-- even now when I have been here so long, it still strikes me. The difference an angle makes and I was to learn, in the daytime, a splash of color.

I wish to point these changes out now for they stood heavy in my mind but never lost gravity even as I walked up to the executioners rope with my hands bound.