The Great Dane

Prologue

"It's over. I've made my choice."

Charlie Haywood, looking out over the deep fast-running river almost hidden by the early hours' darkness, takes a deep breath, closes his soaked eyelids and smiles. The sounds of a city contained indoors by the heavy wintry storm dim to silence as he stands in a quiet hidden pathway. Despite being extremely drunk, he has a moment of complete mental clarity and physical control. Accepting his decision, his toes uncurl from the stone edge, lungs exhale and mouth relaxes.

His body flings forward and begins to fall.

Shit.

Falling is freedom. The air and wind rush through him, cleansing his mind and body. He's free and clean from the truth, content and happy. A truth he'd fought, the thing he ignored, the thought he gave into. Pressure builds as he descends and looks over to his left. The force shoots up into his sinuses and as he blacks out, he tries to scream.

Save me, I don't want to die.

Charlie comes to, looking up at a blurred strip of white light in the black that holds him. His body is broken and he can't move his legs; weighed down in the black by his heavy truth. The one millisecond and flash of white light feels like a lifetime; his history no longer meaning anything. He resigns himself to death, allowing the river to take him. He mouths a name, his last word, slowly sinking, eyes fixed open.