Through its window my cell glows like a single bulb. It is that speck of life you sometimes see from a plane, starleak in the darkness, or a solitary seabird resting on some moonless ocean, poised (wouldn’t Governali love to put it?) above the abyss, yes-on the last branch of a broken faith. Loneliness enlarges thought till it pushes every shadow from my study. In grander moments I think of this space as my skull, and my consciousness as a dinging bell and warning beacon.

William H Gass, The Tunnel