Death would come by asphyxiation but before that would be the struggle to survive, muscles tensing to ease the constriction, those muscles turning into areas of screaming torment when assailed by cramps. And even when they failed to support the weight and so ease the constriction death would not come swiftly. A man could hang in such a position for days and, if provided with a block on which to support his weight, even longer.

A thought, and for a moment he considered it, then shook his head. To add a block, while enhancing the symbolism, would ruin the composition. A second cross-beam would have to be added lower down and would provide a distraction to the eye. An upright surmounted by a cross-piece would serve, but that would eliminate the frame in which the suspended man was centered. No-man was trapped in a prison and the beams were symbols of that. A cage grounded in dirt in which he could find nothing but death and pain. A limited universe which held only anguish.

But how to convey the message?

How to eliminate the distracting hints of amusement in eyes and mouth? The touch of the bizarre? The glint and twist, the subtle but damning suggestion that everything was a joke and death itself the final comedy?

"Cornelius!" The voice came from beyond the arched doorway causing little tinklings to murmur from the crystal chimes hanging beside the portal. Ursula, of course. Who else could create music from shaped and suspended fragments of glass? "Cornelius?"

She entered heralded by the whispering chimes, tall, slim, graceful as she crossed the tessellated floor to stand beside his chair. She was all in blue, a variety of shades which included her eyes, her lips, the sheen of her hair. Deep colors rising from the sandals which hugged her feet, to her cinctured waist, the swell of high and prominent breasts, paling as they rose to frame her softly rounded shoulders with azure, deepening again at her lips, her brows, the crested mane of jewel-set tresses.