The whims of the aging are without logic, so she went to get the pills, leaving Oliver Symmes and the gleaming, sharp knife together, unattended. * * * * * Where should he start? The heart? No, that would be too quick, too easy to repair. Then where? He remembered his studies of the middle Japanese culture and the methods of suicide practiced at that time. The intestines! So many of them to cut and slash at, so much damage that might be done before death set in! Maybe even the lungs! But he must hurry. Picking up the knife, he pointed it at his appendix. For a moment he hesitated, and his eyes observed again the little feast laid out before him. He thought briefly about pausing for just a while to taste the little steak, to nibble briefly at the delectable-looking cake. He hated to leave it untouched. It had been such a long time.... The sudden memory of time, and how much of it he had spent hoping for this moment, snapped his attention back to the knife. Steeling his grip on it, he pressed it in hard. His eyes bulged with the excruciating pain as he wrenched the knife from right to left, twisting it wildly as he went, blindly slashing at his vital organs with the hope that once and for all he could stop the long and eternal waiting. His mouth filled with the taste of blood. He spat it out through clenched teeth. It gushed down his chin, staining the cleanness of his robe. His lips parted to scream. And then his eyes closed. * * * * * And opened again! He was staring at the ceiling, but the men and women standing around him got in his way. Their lips were moving, their faces unperturbed. "That was a nasty thing for him to do." "They all do it, once or twice, until they learn." "Third time for him, isn't it?" "Yes, I believe so. First time he tried hanging himself. Second time he was beating his head against the wall when we came and stopped him. Bloody mess that one was." "Nothing to compare with this, of course." "Well, naturally." Oliver Symmes felt sick with fear of frustration. "Nice technique you showed, Doctor. He'd been dead at least an hour when we started, hadn't he?" "Almost two," someone else said. "An amazing job." "Thank you. But it wasn't too difficult. Just a little patching here and there." He felt his legs being shifted for him. "Be careful there, Nurse. Handle him gently. _Fragilitas Ossium_, you know. Old bones break very easily." "Sorry, Doctor." "Not that we couldn't fix them up immediately if they did." "Naturally, Doctor." "I wish they'd try something different for a change." "The woman in the next room lost an eye last year, trying to reach the prefrontals. Good as new now, of course." He wanted to vomit at the uselessness of it all. "By the way, what's he in for? Do you know?" "No, I'd have to look it up." "Probably newness." "Or taxes." "Or maybe even slander." "Is that on the prescribed antisocial list now?"