What can you do as a guard at the door? When the screams are on the wrong side of it, what are you responsible for?

When the keys are heavy on your belt and your pay is light in your pocket, when the last time you ate was longer ago than the last time it was silent behind the door, what do you do?

If you deaden your ears to the cries, stand there and pretend you hear only the jingle of coins in your pocket, you might eat enough to do it again tomorrow. If you open the door, there will be no more coin or food, and the ones you kept on the wrong side of it for so long might not forgive you.

No one will forgive you. But the screams are so much louder and more forsaken at night, when there is no one to watch you file the iron teeth of keys against your fingers and weigh the coins in your pocket against your soul.