The doors were closed. I alone had the idea to visit the museum in this late hour. How stupid of me, but considering the past few days I had the need for an immediate release, from all the anxiety and the chaos that is my life at the moment. 

My being here, was actually an idea that came to me during supper. I said to myself: “These past few days I’ve been all over the place with talks and talks and more talks with my parents concerning my return to my home town. Everybody knows that considering my crooked past and my 10 year tenancy in the psychiatric ward, my coming home is not an easy task to achieve. I need to get away for a while. I need to go somewhere where all my thoughts will be obsolete for a while.”

So after supper I decided to have a long steamy bath, shave, get dressed and go to the city’s museum. How I enjoy long baths. It feels as if the entire world stands still, and the water is cleansing all of my body and soul. As if all my sins are washed away by the purifying effects of warm water and soap. But like any other sinner, this is only temporary, because sins do not wash away forever. 

12 years ago, when I was 18 years old, I was in the process of moving to Athens to continue my studies in the field of Marketing. Things were going pretty well, until one night, where my entire world came to a standstill. 

I was walking towards my parent’s home, when I heard from some distance the loud sobs of a dog. I followed the sound trying to establish the location from which it originated, so I could see for myself what the trouble was. I turned up an alley near the King’s summer estate, and I saw two men about 20 years of age kneeling down and attending to something by their feet. I moved slowly closer so as to see and hear better. As I approached to a viewing distance, to my eternal human shame I witnessed the two men harnessing a poor dog and spraying it with gasoline. I wanted to move but I froze. Then suddenly, the taller of the two men struck a match and threw it on the poor animal. I cannot describe the horror I witnessed then. The sound will always echo in mind for the rest of my life.