that filled him with the inevitable onrush of guilt and shame that inevitably accompanied such thoughts.  Some vague, foggy notion of the Social Contract; the belief that Killing is Wrong?  Perhaps.  The fear that he was, perhaps — given the right combination of time, disposition, opportunity, armament, provocation — more than capable of launching into violence?  Fear that he could kill?

He was often darkly amused by the phrase “take a life.”  Would he in fact be taking it, grabbing it as if it were a mugger’s spoils and skulked off into some generic darkness?  Would he make it his own?  Collect it, as a trophy?  Or was he simply halting it — halting it, and all that it brought into — or took from — the world?