soon to have company

Just then, a pebble found its way up Sal’s right nostril. It became, of course, the only thing he could think about.

It clung stubbornly to a patch of firm mucous riding the interior cartilaginous hump between "nose" and "sinus", clearly wanting to find purchase in the latter. Despite his desperate, forceful countersnorts, inhales rocked the object ever closer the cavity where, Sal feared, it would forever remain. In the unconscious nanomoment between in and out, he saw himself as an older man, sleeping in a bed he didn’t own with a wife he hadn’t met, snoring like a referee’s whistle. He saw her sleepless. He saw her divorcing him. He estimated the trespassing grit to be roughly the size of a racquetball.

One snarling puff nearly sent the interloper out of his irritated nosehole. He imagined, as he emptied his lungs with gale force, that he’d dislodged the beast and sent the bugger tumbling wildly across the asphalt, moshing among its pebbly peers. But he merely upturned these other potential intruders with whatever air snuck through—a predictable result given his position: face pressed against the greasy street, under the boot of a gunman intending to kill him. His jagged inhale brought in the pebble deeper.