torch song

.......
Jack empties the whiskey bottle into the sink. He began to dress. He stuffed his dirty clothes into a bag. He was trembling and crying with sickness and fear. He could see the blue sky from his window, and in his fear it seemed miraculous that the sky should be blue, that the white clouds should remind him of snow, that from the sidewalk he could her the shrill voices of children shrieking, 'I'm the king of the mountain, I'm the king of the mountain, I'm the king of the mountain.' He emptied the ashtray containing his nail parings and cigarette butts into the toilet, and swept the floor with a shirt, so that there wold be no trace of his life, of his body, when that lewd and searching shape of death came there to find him in the evening.

john cheever.