It  burnt my soul. I went away from him without a word and became a sailor. I had known love because of him or thought I did. He had fooled me. All the years, he had taken all from me, beauty and poetry. Betrayal ate at my heart. Now, after so many years I had returned to find him. I’d heard rumors of his madness. The opium den and Caligula like circus in the dark shadows of evil. My obsession was murderous. I hated myself and I loathed him. I clutched the knife in my pocket like a talisman. Somewhere along these dirt streets with howling wild cats had to be the house with the red tinted windows. A wanton girl with a red dot on her forehead emerged from the shadows. I walked away.

Then I saw it. The house with the pale door and red tinted windows.Shaking. I walked towards it. The door opened before I knocked.An old man with long white hair and beard, sunken cheeks and dirty fingernails, blinked at me. His eyes were watery and red tinged. “It is you.” he whispered. I reached into my pocket for my knife. ” I knew you’d come someday.” he said. “Death usually comes at night.” I stared at him. Suddenly, I realized  he did not know who I was. The old devil thought in his buried poets mind–death had come at last.

“Don’t disappoint me stranger. Do your deed and be gone. All they will find is a pile of dirty clothes and a stack of disfigured bones.”

I couldn’t speak. Nothing mattered. My hate was gone. My love was dead. My future ended here, “Well,” he snarled. “Why are you waiting?” I backed away. He smelled of rot and decaying teeth. He reached out a thin gnarled hand. “Wait! If you are Death, tell me this. My boyhood friend, my muse, is he dead?” I dared not speak. He still clutched my hand. “I loved him, you see. I betrayed him for my own selfish lusts; demons that ate at me till I let them in. My friend left me without a word. He knew I was false. I became the mad, drugged, worthless egotist that had masqueraded as a poet of the people. Who was no ones friend. I have always been false even as a child. I pushed my friend away to get attention. And it was my friend’s devotion, always at my side that made me real and gave me courage. His love drew pictures in my mind that came out as beautiful words.  I never praised him. I was so afraid that one day he’d discover my evil longings and my false empty self. I stole words from other poets. I stole life and breath from my friend. I left him for the cheapest thing…an opium den.”

I felt an agony I had never experienced. I felt hollow like a dummy. My hand in my pocket still clutching the knife.

He stared at me with a dead man’s eyes…and a pleading. I pulled my hand away from his. I pulled out my knife. With  great force I plunged my knife into his chest. He gasp. In a kind of slow motion, he slide to the ground. Feebly, he grasp my trouser leg and looked up. Tears were streaming down his face. “I knew you’d come back to free me…my dearest love, my friend.”