It happened in the heat of the moment. The cold, calculated motions I had been turning over in my mind for months, and which I had no intention of following through, seemed to have assumed a life of their own, and completely took over me. I yielded to them. The bright lights that had relentlessly flashed blindingly behind my tightly shut lids faded into a liquid darkness, a calm darkness, a silent darkness; a darkness so thick I felt myself drowning in it, though breathing now came easier. And I made no effort to fight against it as I sunk even deeper. With it, at long last, came the stillness I had long yearned for. I smiled from the inside out, not the other way around. The silence seemed almost sacred, and I remained perfectly motionless in the growing pool of blood, for fear that the loud voices and scorching lights that had long assailed and enslaved my very being would wake once again. But they never returned, not when I tentatively pried my eyes open, not when I struggled onto my feet, not when I finally let the tears flow, and not even when I was roughly bundled into the waiting police van. And now, behind bars, I have never felt more liberated. Silence.