Good God! Why _should_ he be coming back to that? And to Old Man Hammil's store? It was that confounded cockroach there, reminding him of Old Man Hammil, that had done it. He wanted to die decently and quietly, and as quickly as might be, without thinking of all these things. He didn't want to lie there and die of starvation, he wanted to kill himself and be done with it without further misery--and it was a part of the ridiculous futility of his life, his baffled and broken and insignificant life, that he couldn't even kill himself competently--that he lay there suffering and ineffectual and full of self-pity, a prey to memories and harassing visions of the past, all mingled with youth and innocence and love, without the means of a quick escape. It was that damned cockroach, looking like Old Man Hammil, the village hardware merchant, that had brought back the village and his youth to him, and all those intolerable recollections.
He took his dirty pillow and feebly menaced the cockroach. Feeble as the gesture was, the insect took alarm. It disappeared from the footboard of the bed. A minute later, however, he saw it climbing the wall. It reached the ceiling, and crawled to the center of the room. Mr. Goo-ley watched it. He felt as if he, too, could crawl along the ceiling. He had the crazy notion of trying. After all, he told himself light-headedly, Old Cockroach Hammil up there on the ceiling had been friendly--the only friendly thing, human or otherwise, that had made overtures to him in many, many months. And he had scared Cockroach Hammil away! He shed some more maudlin tears.
What was the thing doing now? He watched as the insect climbed on to the gas pipe that came down from the ceiling. It descended the rod and perched itself on the gas jet. From this point of vantage it began once more to regard Mr. Gooley with a singular intentness.
Ah! Gas! That was it! What a fool he had been not to think of it sooner! That was the way people killed themselves! Gas!
Mr. Gooley got himself weakly out of bed. He would get the thing over as quickly as possible now. It would be damnably unpleasant before he lost consciousness, no doubt, and painful. But likely not more unpleasant and painful than his present state. And he simply could not bear any more of those recollections, any more visions.