As bad as it was, it became worse when Nan explained that at the end of my hospital stay-which would not come for many more months-I’d be placed in a halfway house for “reintegration” into society. Eventually, she said, I’d be able to look after most of my own needs and live on my own.

Seventeen years after release from one government home, I would find my way back into a different one-but at least when I was a penniless child, I had had my life ahead of me. At thirty-five I was a spent, struck match.

So I listened to the doctors and I nodded yeses when they told me about upcoming surgeries, but they might as well have been telling me about my upcoming trip to the city at the bottom of the sea. I signed consent forms; I signed away my house and all my personal possessions. A burn such as mine can easily cost half a million dollars to treat, and without much more effort can climb its way to more than a million.

My lawyer came to visit, uncomfortable in his gown. Unlike the other visitors, he had also decided to wear a surgical mask; it would be charitable to think this was for my protection, but it was more likely his own paranoia that he might catch something. In any case, I thought it appropriate: I could not look upon his masked face without thinking of a thief come to rob me.

He said a few words about how sorry he was about my accident; then, this formality dispensed with, he launched into an explanation of the serious trouble that my production company was experiencing. At the root, the problem was nonfulfillment of contracts to deliver new content to sales outlets; filming had ceased the moment I wasn’t around to run operations, but delivery commitments had already been signed. He ran through a number of options, but because I had never trained anyone to fulfill my duties if I was incapacitated, only one scenario was truly viable: bankruptcy. He didn’t want to bother me continually in my “difficult time,” he explained, so he had already prepared the documents enabling my creditors to seize and liquidate my assets. Of course, he had ensured that the bankruptcy filing fees would be paid up front.

I just signed everything he placed in front of me, in order to get him out of the room quicker. The irony was not lost upon me that after making all my money in the skin trade, I was now trading all my money for skin. The deed done and my company instantly folded, the lawyer didn’t know what to do other than say he was sorry one more time and exit the ward as quickly as possible.

And so my life went. When the doctors told me that I was improving, I did my best imitation of a smile. The nurses were proud of me as I squeezed the therapy ball with my burnt hand. They thought I was doing it to improve my strength, but I only wanted to shut them up. I was tired of Maddy’s teasing, Beth’s seriousness, and Connie’s optimism.

I lay patiently during the Eucerin rubs, each one a tour of duty. I would pray, in the foxhole of my mind, for the opportunity to desert. At one point, Nan nonchalantly stated that my wounds were a “classic challenge” for a doctor such as herself. I pointed out that I was not a problem to be solved. She stammered. “That’s not what I meant, I-I, uh…You’re right. I was out of line, and I’m truly sorry.”

I felt a brief sense of victory, but the funny thing was that I agreed with her completely: I was a problem to be solved, although we saw it from opposing angles. She saw my bandages as a larval cocoon from which I would emerge, while I saw them as a funeral shroud.

The bitchsnake of my spine kept swishing her tail around in my guts and churning out the sentence I AM COMING AND THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT. I didn’t even care anymore. The snake was coming. So what? Just one more problem in an endless list. There was the Dachau of my face. There was my body, a real-life version of Dante’s Inferno, constantly threatening to collapse in upon itself. The mantle of my skin over the hollowed-out Hell of my soul could not continue to support its own weight; my integrity had been compromised in every way. One doctor, hearing about the loss of my penis, visited to explain the most recent developments in erectile prosthetics, should I get a rebuilt cock. Whereas once there were only rods on hinges that allowed the penis to stand up or hang limp, it was now possible to install sophisticated pumping systems.

Such technological advances were little consolation to a man once admired for his ability to maintain an erection for ungodly periods of time. How the mighty are fallen.

I would simply get well enough to be released and, within twenty-four hours of leaving the hospital, I would be dead. This was my promise to myself, and it was the only thing that kept me going.

I am an atheist.

I do not believe there is a God who will punish me for self-slaughter.

Because I lack religious belief, I have never considered my accident to be divine retribution for my “immoral” activities. I know exactly why my accident occurred. Because I was high, I had a hallucination of arrows coming at me. To avoid the imaginary arrows, I drove my car over the side of a real cliff. The gasoline in my tank only did what gasoline does, which is to ignite when introduced to sparks. When flames engulfed my body, my body started to burn according to the laws of thermodynamics and biology. There is no deeper meaning.

I understand that some people find God after misfortune, although this seems to me even more ridiculous than finding Him in good times. “God smote me. He must love me.” It’s like not wanting a romantic relationship until a member of the opposite sex punches you in the face. My “miraculous survival” will not change my opinion that Heaven is an idea constructed by man to help him cope with the fact that life on earth is both brutally short and, paradoxically, far too long.

In the spirit of full disclosure, however, I should reveal something that many theists will insist must inform my disbelief in God. They will argue that I forgo the idea of Heaven because if I accepted it, I would have to admit that I am destined for Hell.

Because I have murdered someone.

There’s a gentle sigh which descends like billowing silk upon the soul that accepts its coming death. It’s a gentle pocket of air in the turbulence of everyday life. The silk of this feeling flutters-no, “flutters” is too active a word-the silk settles around you as if it has been drifting towards the earth forever and has finally found its target. The flag of defeat has been mercifully dropped and, in this action, the loss is not so bad. Defeat itself is defeated by the embrace of defeat, and death is swallowed up in victory.

The hiss of the snake fades away and death touches lovingly, possessively: it’s a master who pets the head of the dog, or a parent who consoles the crying child. The hours begin to roll and the days scarcely separate themselves from the nights. Darkness swells like a beautiful, hushed tsunami, and the body craves calming lullabies and final psalms.

I can state this with authority: nothing compares with deciding to die. I had an excellent plan and it made me smile. It made me drift more lightly on my air flotation bed.

I was an unbeloved monster. No one would mourn my loss; for all intents and purposes, I was already gone. Who would miss me-the doctors who pretended to care? Nan did her best to say all the right things and showed a hopeful face, but she was kind enough not to lie. I lied to her, though, when I pretended that I wanted to heal. I was perfecting my plan, working on it as the nurses tended to my grossness, their tender hands skittering around my body like the most graceful of insects landing upon feces.