This may be what - it feels like.

So the order was given to the hostages. Excuse me war criminals. Excuse me prisoners. "One of you will die in twelve hours. You are to choose among yourselves which one of you dies."

Then just as the messenger who brings these good tidings stops, and returns. "Ah yes, one more thing. As we do not expect your cooperation in this matter, if you fail to choose, then five of you will die instead of one."

As no one wants to be the one, yet all volunteer to be, there must be some way to decide. The decision could not be made from the standpoint of logic. So then, it must be made a matter of chance. A random method to decide which one will be chosen.

So lacking straw, seventeen pieces of twine, and all but one identical lengths, one being considerably shorter than the others. All seventeen bundled loosely inside a sock with only the ends sticking out.

Over the course of the next few hours...excuse me minutes actually...the thirteenth piece of twine is pulled from the sock, and it is as long as the twelve that went before it.

Ah thirteen is perhaps not an unlucky number, after all.

Perhaps the real problem is that four have yet to draw. Four pieces of twine, and four hearts beating loudly enough to hear almost, waiting their turn to draw.

The feeling in all four stomachs one of tightness. Not an ache really, more of a knotted feeling, as the tension grows with each draw of the twine.

As this is only a hypothetical scenario, I would not know how it would actually feel to be one of those last four to draw.

All I know is that the knot that my stomach seems to be tied in.....well I am not sure I know what to say would make it feel like that.

I await. I ponder. I look forward to news. Not sure what the news will be. Of course if I were sure what all outcomes were, then there would be no physical tension, now would there?

So yes, I suppose it is in the not knowing, that the tension lies.

Chances are I am not done expressing myself on these matters.

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