It doesn't matter, really, who you are, sooner or later our lives intersect. Sometimes it's purely coincidental: a seat shared in the subway, a glance across a crowded resteraunt, caught by the same traffic light. Other times, only one of us walks away from the juxtaposition. It is the nature of the beast; my nature.

Before you jump to any conclusions let me assure you that I am in no way random or illogical, every move I make is with malice aforethought. There is nothing I am not deliberate in. You know precisely why I've arrived at your doorstep, what transgression you've committed, exactly how you sinned. It is not my place to weigh your actions and reasons against the law, I am merely the sword, not the scale. The court you have been judged in is without jury, without counsel, without appeal, and without mercy. Sentence has been passed. I am their messenger.

Of course my services are on a contract basis, but permit me to forstall your offer: professionalism prevents me from sparing you. My word is my bond, and with it I have sealed your death. Only mine now will save you, and I am already on intimate terms with Death.

So please, save your pride. You cannot escape culpability for the acts I have laid at your feet, they belong to you alone. Each made with full recognizance of the consequences and ramifications.

Were you convinced of your ordinariness?

That you were merely another cog in the vast machinery that grinds out the effluvium we call society.

Surprised? You shouldn't be, it's an accepted theory that just before death, all things make sense. Permit me to speak some and I shall endeavor to muddy the waters.

No ordinary people exist in this world. No one goes home to 1.7 children, dinner on the table, a loving spouse, and a warm bed to sleep in. Every person who steps off the Green line train onto the Seventh Street ramp wonders about his mortality, considers if there are heros left, and hopes desperately that he is not ordinary. And to the last, they stand convinced that no one else harbors such thoughts. So they fake uniformity. Try and be submerge their desires. Carbon copies.

Please, go ahead and smoke, I think the health risks at this point are negligible. I would offer a last supper, but you've already eaten. Steamed rice and carrots, veal steaks with lemon sauce, a dessert of chocolate mousse, all with a glass of water and two fingers of brandy.

Don't look surprised, I would be in dereliction of sound judgment were I not intimately familiar with your every move.

Take your time, I'm in no hurry. You're not walking away from here, and I do not have another appointment until tomorrow.

Indict me, would you? It matters little, but I prefer not parting on bad terms. Society needs one such as me, it needs a monster to force it to greatness.

I am the nightmare you wake sweating from in the middle of the night, I am the madness of lucidity, I am morphine for a dead man's wounds. It has not been easy, to become what I am now. Years of study coupled with years of self-destruction have combined in a gothic germination, a realization of the abyss within.

But enough, I see you are finished. Shall we then? The time is at hand. No, don't rise, there's no need to. Just look out the window there. Fold your hands if you're going to pray, now is not the time to forsake protocol.

In pace requiescat.