I am a dead man walking. That's not a metaphor, not a promise of a future event the way you usually think of it. I really am dead -- and have been for some time now.

I walk the streets of this city. I pass by people on the sidewalk, and they instinctivel…

Night clings to the forest like a shroud. The darkness is nearly absolute, the silhouettes of the trees only just a hair's-breadth deeper black.

The sounds of life are everywhere, however. The chirps of insects and the calls of nocturnal predators. Th…