Kuldes Sharma hopes he is in the right place. He parks at the end of the dirt road, surrounded on all sides by trees that look like spirits in the dark. He finally made up his mind this afternoon, around four o’clock, as he was sitting in the storeroom of his shop. The box was in front of him, on the table, and the radio was playing “Mistletoe and Wine.” He made two phone calls, and now here he is. He turns off the car lights and sits in complete darkness. It’s incredibly risky, to say the least. But he’s nearly eighty—when will he have a better chance to take the risk? What’s the worst that could happen? That they find him and kill him? They are certainly capable of both, but would it be so tragic? Kuldes thinks about his friend Steven. How he looks now. How lost, how silent, how diminished. Will the future hold the same for him? What fun they used to have, their group… What a racket they made…

The world now becomes a whisper in Kuldes’s ears. His wife is gone, his friends are disappearing. He longs for the wild roar of life. And then the man with the box appeared. Somewhere in the distance, a faint glow flickers through the trees. The sound of an engine is heard in the icy silence. It starts to snow, and he hopes that the road back to Brighton won’t be too dangerous. Lights sweep across the rear windshield as another car approaches. Boom, boom, boom. His old heart. He had almost forgotten it was hanging in there. Kuldes doesn’t have the box with him now. It is carefully hidden, though, and for now, that will protect him as well. It is his safety. He needs to buy a little more time. And if he manages it, well, then…