Sixteen

They rolled him into the ambulance, feet drumming weakly on the steel gurney. He was undoubtedly an impatient man. Some claimed that he had once (in a fit of pique), thrown his cell-phone off a bridge. Today an automated voice had said: ‘his call was very important’ --- but sixteen were ahead of him; after fifteen long minutes he lost the connection. Then it was that he took a kitchen knife and stabbed his noisy neighbor who had bugged him all year. Fearing incarceration and having no reason not to, he cut his own wrists. It’s the little things that inflame; the oft repeated annoyances. After fifteen maddening scratches a persistent itch can turn murderous