The Moulin Rouge. A place of sadness, hope, dreams, but most of all, love. This is where we first met: Satine and I. The memories are bittersweet, but they're all I have left anymore. Some days I think that it would have been better if I had never gone to the Moulin Rouge, never experienced all the heartache and betrayal, all of the sadness. But what about love? Another part of my mind asks. Would it have been better if I had never experienced love before? The battle with myself always ends in a draw. Sometimes Toulouse comes, to try to cheer me up I think, but his visits are more out of duty than of desire. Mostly my days are spent lost in thoughts about Satine, almost being able to feel her skin, hear her breath, and see her face. But even in one corner of my mind I know it isn't real. The red mill, the symbol of the Moulin Rouge, spins slowly across the sky leaving red streaks across my vision in its wake. It's false cheerfulness seems to taunt me, and I realize that's all the Moulin Rouge is. An act. While the men watch the dancers' facades of smiles and laughs, behind the curtain of the Moulin Rouge is an unvoiced and unwritten tragedy. While Satine was dying backstage, the curtain rose and fell again and again, and song after song was played, oblivious to anything but the performance. The show must go on.