The Day Time Stopped Moving

_All Dave Miller wanted to do was commit suicide in peace. He tried,
but the things that happened after he'd pulled the trigger were all
wrong. Like everyone standing around like statues. No St. Peter, no
pearly gate, no pitchforks or halos. He might just as well have
saved the bullet!_


Dave Miller would never have done it, had he been in his right mind. The
Millers were not a melancholy stock, hardly the sort of people you
expect to read about in the morning paper who have taken their lives the
night before. But Dave Miller was drunk--abominably, roaringly so--and
the barrel of the big revolver, as he stood against the sink, made a
ring of coldness against his right temple.

Dawn was beginning to stain the frosty kitchen windows. In the faint
light, the letter lay a gray square against the drain-board tiles. With
the melodramatic gesture of the very drunk, Miller had scrawled across
the envelope:

"This is why I did it!"