The Tallyman by Franko Sinatra

Last night. Another dead line passed. Or is that crossed? It's the lives that pass, away. How many lives has one investigative cartoonist?

If you approach the King too close the guards will kill you. That is the deadline. Keeps the stuffed shirts, the parasites camouflaged in privilege, out of assassination range.

So they thought.

That was before, venom loaded, I poised my pen and recorded their soulless undertakings staining, smudging and bleeding onto the thirsty blank pages laid out in front of me.