Summary

The first part of this section of the book is titled “2 Hours,” and returns to the second-person, present-tense narration describing the last day of Anson Packer. Packer reflects on how little time he has left, on how the guard keeps passing to make sure he has not killed himself, and on how there is nothing to kill himself with. A short while later, the chaplain from his previous prison arrives, carrying Packer’s Theory, which Packer had hoped would still be distributed as planned by Shawna but which is now likely, he thinks, to end up either filed away or, more likely, in a dumpster. He thinks angrily about Shawna, and her disbelief when he tells her that he wants to leave something permanent of himself behind. “Some people,” she said, “left enough already” (197).

Packer spreads the theory out and looks at it...