Nick paced through his darkened apartment, not bothering to turn on the lights as he threw his keys, which missed the counter and went straight to the kitchen floor. He felt that he needed to punch a wall, but refrained because his roommate primarily owned their shabby apartment. Cade allowed Nick to live there because the two had been best friends since high school, but Nick knew that his living situation was not permanent and could be cut off if he caused too much trouble. In truth, Nick cared little about maintaining his living situation, but it was his only option at the time.

Jokingly, Nick always said that he lived “on the brink,” because he lived in a certain section of New York where one could be surrounded by dilapidated schools and trashed lots one minute, then by towering corporate buildings and elite clubs the next. Nick lived on the brink of high class real estate, but he of course could not take the step across. He lived on the couch of a messy apartment between a building of broken-out windows and a dirt lot of cigarette butts that had once been a park.

Nick tried not to think about this situation, or the one at hand, as he tried to simmer down. He still sat in the dark as he leaned back into his couch/bed and stared at the ceiling, silently condemning himself for his stupidity. He had never felt this guilty after cheating before, and he cheated a lot. More than a lot. He never even tried to forge through a relationship monogamously in his entire life. He could not decide if that was ridiculous or if his situation was expected of a twenty-two year old.

That doesn’t matter, he thought, because… Camille.

He could not bring himself to say it, or even to think it, but Nick really liked Camille—so of course, he cheated on her, like all the other girls. Unlike the other girls, Nick felt nothing but remorse about Camille finding out.

What the Hell is wrong with me?

Nick questioned his life and why he continuously wasted it when longed to live half a mile away in a luxurious loft, working with all the other successful businessmen. He began to trace the path of his life backward, to figure out where he made a wrong turn or why exciting opportunities never presented themselves to him. As these thoughts swam through his head, Nick came to a sudden awareness of the quiet buzz of the television, which was the only light and faint sound in the room. He leaned toward the screen to see what was on.

“The Ten Commandments,” Nick mumbled to himself, “of course.”

The general consensus was that Cade was “a pretty weird dude,” which attracted Nick to being his friend in the first place. Since this was the case, Cade liked to watch old movies, but instead of watching them, he always started them then got distracted and disappeared somewhere else. This is how Nick became familiar with the middle or ending of many old movies—today, it was the Ten Commandments.

“I’m not watching this for three hours,” he grumbled to himself, grabbing a coat from the arm of the couch/bed and stomping out the door without bothering to grab his keys from the kitchen floor.



Nick watched his breath as he stalked through the frozen street to the corner store, the only lighted building on the street. He quickly and pointedly bought his cigarettes, making no attempt at small talk, and then leaned against the brick wall of the convenience store to smoke the first one.

Nick felt something against his torn shoe as he shoved the pack into his pocket. An important-looking document stuck out of the muddy ice, and Nick leaned down to pick it up as the unlit cigarette hung from his mouth. Upon brushing most of the sandy sludge from the small poster, Nick discovered that it was a copy of the Ten Commandments.

On any other day, Nick would have chuckled at the thought of some guy tearing this poster from a Sunday school wall, but this evening he was annoyed and slightly alarmed that he might be receiving some sort of “message from God.” Nick tried to dismiss this thought, shoving the poster into his pocket on his way back to the apartment, but he then saw a man under a streetlight. The man stood right next to the entrance to Nick’s building, yelling and throwing his hands toward the black sky.

“Praise the Lord! God will save you! He will save you!” the man yelled, turning his attention to Nick. “Just follow Him! Follow him and he will save you!” Nick hustled past the man, who began to move toward him, questioning whether Nick had been saved. He wanted to dismiss the man as another crazy guy—they hung around on his street all the time—but Nick could not get past the thought that a sign was being presented to him. Not having grown up in a church environment, Nick was not familiar with the Ten Commandments, so he unrolled the small poster as soon as he reached his still-empty apartment.

Nick’s eyes raced across the page as his fear grew and his heart sank. His heart stopped for a moment as he read “Thou Shalt Not Kill.”

I am not a murderer, Nick thought upon reading the high decree. This was true—he had not committed murder—but a sudden desperation climbed into his chest at the realization that he had committed every other sin on the list so far. He felt as if he had already been accused of this terrible crime, as he feared that he could easily become a murderer if he so easily broke the other Commandments. This fear was not calmed as he read over the rest. Though he had obeyed a few of the Commandments, Nick had certainly done his fair share of most of them, and he felt panicked at the concept of where his life might be headed.