The tall man walked across the porch with a regular clomp, clomp, clomp. He stopped, turned, and again, clomp, clomp, clomp. He’d been doing this for a while. He leaned his hands on the rail stared out at the cold, gray sky that matched his eyes exactly. He thought of life. Like steel it was hard, cold, and inflexible. But dependable. You could sure count on that. It was always the same.

Clomp, clomp, clomp. And again. Clomp, clomp, clomp.

The porch was just long enough for three long ...