text: Pre-face: I’ve lived a long and prosperous life. Oft times, I sit in a chair near as old as myself and reflect. The neighbors seem to harbor fear or distrust for me as I stare blankly from my stoop. The lingering stares as they pass don’t affect me. I know of their secrets. I can see further and clearer than most, despite my current state of withering. The man across the way is an adulterer; he has even laid with his lowly maid. The neighborhood children are the cause for the pets gone missing. The neighbor to the left pockets the silverware when at others’ homes. The woman down the street had widowed herself. But they still pass, unaware of the ubiquity of a life long lived. My housemate is among them. He sleeps during the day and benights himself in the shadows as he prowls the streets at night. I watch him closely, for he seems the most disturbed on the street. And he watches back. I keep him out of reach to ensure my safety. I make sure he is comfortable and fed. When I rest my head and all-seeing eyes, I latch my doors and sleep facing the entrance. These securities I take may be superfluous, but they feel necessary. I awake to subtle sounds, those of mice skittering beneath the wooden floorboards or the chirping of a lost, lone cricket. Frequently, I have dreams of being watched. A man who peers around corners as I browsed the open markets. A child stuck in the corner of my eye. A bright light will shine on my face. Faint noises of metal scraping and creaking. These visions feel like more than a decaying man’s unconscious delusions and more of a warning. A warning that fell upon deaf ears. A warning I should have heeded. Half a fortnight has passed of these queer dreams before I was startled awake by a familiar sound. A sound that echoed from my fantasms; the creaking of an iron latch. The sanctity of my bed-chamber was compromised, and the door swung open. The silhouette of the man who breaks my bread ingresses and hovers to the foot of my bed. The housemate was leering above me. He bounds towards me with unremarkable speed. The lantern crashes to the floor. He grips my ankles and yanks my decrepit body to the floor. I let out one final cry, the last utterance of a life long lived. I hear a crunch and blinding pain as bones break upon impact. He drags the heavy metal frame over me, snuffing out my frail worldly existence. The pain fades rapidly and a darkness unknown creeps across my vision. I see nothing, but I can hear the thumping of a beating heart. One that is no longer mine. The beating softens to a whisper, then to a deafening silence. I can hear his heavy breathing as my chest falls for the last time with a rasp of stale air. His hand lies above my immobile heart for minutes. I am being dragged and am lifted into the porcelain basin. A stridulent sound arises as a saw grinds through my limbs, then my neck. I hear the strain of floorboards being pried up, and I tumble, piece by piece, into the emptiness below. I lie there cold and alone, bewildered by my inanimate awareness, for an indiscernible length of time. A knock comes from the postern and the falling of multiple feet enters my lodging. My slayer’s voice is booming with arrogance as he leads the officers to my dormitory. His deceit was clear to me. It appears he has meditated on this macabre act for a while. A chair is placed above my wooden sepulcher. His lies accumulate like snow rolling down a mountain. I am not simply out of town. His confidence staggers and the officers make a hushed note of it. My clothes still hang, my books still opened, my jewelry still displayed. I hear a thumping again. A heartbeat I long to have rests above me, thrashing uneasily in the chest of the man who ended a life long lived. Thu-thump. Thu-thump. Thu-thump. The officers rise to their feet, erected by their suspicions. The murder casts aside the chair covering my false grave. “Villains!,” he shrieked, “dissemble no more! I admit the deed! Tear up the planks! Here, here! It is the beating of his hideous heart!” A familiar creak came from above and the officers uncovered the remains of a life long lived.