Besides having summers off, there was never anything about being a teacher that appealed to Giovanni. Neither in the rearing of other peoples' children, nor the thankless tedium of report cards, nor the parent-interviews, nor being held to account by career-jockeying-croney-administrators and the litany of other things they required of him. During those days, instead of doing the things expected by genteel society, there was much more lucrative business to attend.

These were the responsibilities that he had sought to kill in his journey east. His brain had started to liquefy in his skull, bouncing along on that train to Prague that August afternoon, and never was he able to foresee that macabre end awaiting him down that dark, damp hallway. That hooded, black figure for whose services he eventually learned he would need a reservation.

In spite of the terrible failing on his and their part that later came of it, nothing could ever compare to that mind-melting train-ride, those hours between lives, not the reputation, respect, the power. In his memory, during these hours, it was like a giant invisible hand stuck out its long pointed finger, slowly, to push against the earth's axis, reversing the seasons; like those moments in nature during a total solar eclipse when everything stirs in its place. He smiled.

Why Prague? Why the cryptic letters? Why him? Such were the questions that had sloshed around that brain of his. To such questions he would soon have the answer. But until then, such questions meant suspense, an ignorance like that of schoolchildren. Now, as he awaited Death's cold hand, he knew those hours of ignorance were the point at which everything would change. He held onto those hours like a refuge.

But what was the second half of that verse? No—that couldn’t ruin this moment; ignorance can not torment a dead-man. For God’s sake, what was the second-half of that damned verse!

That horrible ignorance, those words echoing against the cold, concrete walls of his cell, that mental refrain begging for completion, like an itch he couldn’t scratch, that and his ignorance to the question, where in the world was that damned list? were the thoughts that walked Giovanni down that hall toward his cold damp end.