He Entered the Room for the Last Time

He laid the briefcase on the table and the sound of it momentarily drowned out the central heat and the muffled banging of a construction site a block south and 32 floors below. He was grateful that the cushioning of the padded, Naugahyde side-panel masked the hollow, empty sound he'd expected. He wished, briefly, that he'd not eaten the apple and jelly sandwich he'd packed that morning as they'd added some weight and would have made his swinging the briefcase down onto the table look more authentic. This thought was followed by a surprisingly intense shame, and he did his best to push it out of his mind. Looking down he saw a bead of sweat land on the right-side, brass latch and resisted the urge to wipe it away. He sensed the stares coming at him from the men around the table but did not yet look up. He paused for a moment pondering, and quickly rejecting, the idea of opening the case and pretending to rummage through it. In the moments he had left he tried to accept that there were no answers, no solutions and no recourses. Then, he raised his head, and in a slow, soft voice began to speak