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Michael Bekker is addicted to drugs. Bekker spends most of his days taking pill after pill after pill, many of them mind altering pills that cause him to lose time out of the day. Bekker is a pathologist obsessed with death, obsessed with what happens to the soul at the moment of death. Bekker uses his drugs not only to keep himself calm and to appear normal in front of other people, but also to hallucinate and explore parts of the mind not always open to conscious adults. Bekker is a selfish, dark man who plots his wife's death as though he is asking a friend to pick up a case of beer. Bekker is falling apart, allowing the drugs to take over his life and destroy his health. However, Bekker is still lucid enough to plot murder in such a way that from a distance he appears innocent.