From my short story "Ghetto"

My nose had begun to run again and the bow of my lip was raw from rubbing. I sneezed repeatedly and excused myself. In the bathroom I stared at my reflection, my shirt lifted over my left breast. There was the lentil-sized hole that had been punched into my skin for the biopsy. The silver nitrate they'd applied turned the scab a greenish-black color. The red lesion remained. Tears filled my eyes and I blotted them with toilet paper. Where was Laurie? I'd called her house and left three messages already, but she hadn't called back. I sat on the closed toilet seat sobbing; my breast still exposed. The thoughts I'd been reigning in for four days flooded into my consciousness.

I retreated to the master bedroom and slid under the jacquard duvet cover. This was what would even the odds. I'd been able to quit my job, live in luxury and comfort and slowly move further away from everything I had once cared so much about. I should have known I wouldn't be free. I should have known I would not get out of it. Death was the great equalizer wasn't it?

I had the sensation of being heated internally. My skin flushed and I began to panic. Is this all there was? After all I'd thought my life to be about- and then to be turned in so completely different a direction. Adrenaline moved my heart into my throat and temple. I cried openly as I realized the answer to a question I had been asking for most of my life. Some people have more than others do because in the end, all that matters is that we are all born, and we all die. As I lay on the bed that evening, music and laughter wafting up the open staircase and into my room, the answer came. We are not equal in life-this is unimportant- it is death that makes us the same.