I have written every day for the last 85 years. I will not write tomorrow.

My books have sold tens of millions of copies and their film adaptations have grossed Hollywood billions over the decades. Fine arts programs dissect my short stories ad nauseam; can’t say I’m not flattered but they do tend to overanalyze. Sometimes a good story is just a good story. I can still dead-lift 70 pounds and walk half a mile a day. I am comfortable. I am healthy. I am also exhausted of spirit, drained.

A hundred years is as round a number as there is. Ninety-nine actually, if we’re keeping score, considering that the centennial of my birth comes next week. I have outlived all of my friends, both of my children, and my wife. It has been seven years since someone I cared about joined me for candles on a cake. I don’t want to relive the pain of yet another birthday spent alone. Age is license for truth-telling. Loneliness is a malignant thing and I aim to bring its long run to a close.

I shit, shower, and shave. In considering how to dress for the occasion, I choose the middling ground between a three-piece suit and sloppy sweats; khakis, Oxford collar shirt, and an old, favorite, marled sweater. Breakfast beckons. Greek yogurt and blueberries have suited my digestion well for years; no need to indulge in pancakes, though the thought of drowning a stack in maple syrup and chocolate ice cream tempts. Habits die hard. Sometimes they just die.

At the kitchen counter, I make quick work of the sports section; the Rangers were kind enough to see me off with a win last night. I spend a few minutes with my coffee and the Times’ Spelling Bee. I note the old schoolhouse clock—a treasured gift from my wife—hanging on the dining room wall. It moves toward 10:00 AM and it is time to attend the day’s business.

I retreat to my study, surrounded by my favorite things; Superheroes, Mets, Jets, and Stooges; photographs of old New York and dead presidents; toy trucks; knick-knacks and bric-a-brac. I assemble the paraphernalia for the task at hand.

I plop into my oversized leather chair that welcomes its old friend; soft brown leather stained from sweat over the decades where my head so often falls asleep on it. More than comfortable, it has molded to my shape like a warm, lingering hug.

I open the bottle of single malt Auchentoshan that was 21 years old when I bought it three decades ago in a Lake Huron resort town. The proprietor was right about the peat; it adds balance to the scotch without overpowering it. I enjoy three robust pours over 45 minutes.

The Art Deco lighter with the pinstriped channels feels cold and good in my hand. I coax one cigarette reluctant to leave its 19 clingy neighbors. I pull deeply on my first Lucky Strike in six decades and blunt it in a cereal bowl; I own no ashtray.

I quaff the scotch—the malted notes heighten the toasted tobacco flavor lingering on my tongue—and set the leaded tumbler aside.

I cock the gun and place the barrel in my mouth. I engage the trigger.

The pain is instant and intense but subsides in moments to an acerbic, scraping throb. I perceive no coppery taste of blood in my mouth or throat.

The act is no marker of dark depression. Neither is it drunken foolishness. It is time; a pragmatic acceptance motivated by reality. Twenty-seven outs in a ballgame, 60 minutes on the gridiron, 48 minutes in basketball. There is to be no overtime this pristine and cold February morning. It is… game over. Leave on a high note before the cancers secreting in various soft tissues make their presences obvious.

The “Bug-A-Salt” rifle, loaded with table salt and meant to sadistically kill flies? A toy; hardly lethal… unless one is a fly. A steeling of courage; call it dress rehearsal.

But… it is no rehearsal. The oversized, yellow, plastic gun is a mirage, like the salty, abraded feeling in the back of my throat. As I pull the toy’s trigger, the scene transforms in real time. I am not holding the toy gun, but rather my long-dead friend’s century-old police revolver, still in good working order. How has it gotten to my Michigan home from his gun safe in Maryland? The pistol is cold, three pounds of heft. The backward grip feels awkward. Guns are not designed to be pointed toward the roof of one’s mouth.

My consciousness perceives these thoughts and questions in my last heartbeat, my last brainwave, as a gargantuan smiling head with a black pencil mustache pauses the action and invites me to the void with a sparkle in its eye. It fills my visual field, commands all attention.

The mustachioed visage envelops my persona as my head explodes. I accept with compliance and am jerked toward nothingness. “Nothingness” feels permanent, weighty, of moment. There is no pain, but the contentment I had felt as I sipped the scotch, as I pulled on the Lucky, is as ruined as the brain strewn in jellied clumps on my favorite chair.

I feel… fear.

I hear Led Zeppelin; pipers calling me to Heaven.

And, I hear Tom Petty and his Heartbreakers: “You can stand me up at the gates of Hell…”

My 99 years congeal in a singularity that conveys the route I took. I am awash in confusion, fear, and an immersive awareness. I am experiencing a rapid action re-telling of my life; a recitation of actions and consequences, deeds and costs. Is Mr. Moustache inviting a choice? I watch the decades careen by and try to keep score to justify the choice I want to make; I always preferred Zeppelin to Petty.

The veneer of choice is an illusion. I am led forward…and beyond. For a moment, I yearn to write one more story.