The End
"This is the end, beautiful friend
This is the end, my only friend, the end
Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end
I'll never look into your eyes again"
- The End, the Doors
It is said that when one dies, the totality of one's life flashes before one's eyes. This must be why those dreams and memories returned again and again to him through the long days. For the years have been but a slow dying; the prisoner does not doubt that the hangman's noose waits at the end. Yet recent times have brought a new clarity to his old, rehashed memories. It was the clarity of death. True, he still breathed and walked and talked. But he did not doubt...
Now. All stories have a beginning. It may be difficult for conceited children to conceive of a beginning that did not start with them, or that their elders could ever have been young once. But even wicked old men were children once. From as early as he could recall, he had struggled to control the rancor, as least in front of her. (Was it was indeed true, that he was just bad from the start, born bad?) He liked to think that he strove mightily and lost the struggle, but to be fair and truthful (as a dead man should be), towards the end of their friendship he had not tried. He had exulted in the sweetness of his self-taught dark arts. It was the magic that had given him back control of himself and raised him above the mundane. It had gifted him with power over others - perhaps even the power of life and death.
He had not wanted her to notice what he was becoming, believing that with one more lie, or a bigger lie, he could have had it both ways. He also liked to think that she had belonged to him and that he had been robbed, wronged. To continue with the fair and truthful business, their paths had diverged from the start as had been determined by their divergent natures. That was how she had ended up with another man, and he serving the Master.
Conceited children who may have the chance to review such a history would think badly of him. Let them. He would not want them to experience the glory and horror of the Master in that era, even for understanding. He had been but one of the many men and women groveling at the Master's feet - willingly, gratefully - for the small chance to please Him. And if He should gaze upon them in favor, how their very souls would shrivel in horror even as they feel they would faint in ecstasy! How the Master beguiled and cajoled, terrorized and dominated His servants!
Therefore, it had been unthinkable, even for himself at that time, to be so stubbornly contrary before the Master.