There are no muses to call upon, there is no place for songs here. If ever there were heroes or gods, they have long since passed on, leaving not even a shadow of their once heralded gestures. I need no oracle to tell me my fate; Atropos has already had her way with me.

The cries of lost souls envelop me with their anguish. Tormented, they wade in the waters of a river black with blood; their bodies clamoring for a single elusive gasp of air. Their bodies are piled upon one another so thickly a man could walk on the sanguine waters like an unholy messiah, bringing anguish and doom to all the sinners of this forsaken underworld. The other end of the pond promises unfathomable punishments that no divine book, comedic or otherwise, could ever have predicted. The air is pregnant with the smoke of charred flesh and a mixture of secretions so fowl that only oblivion’s sweet relief could snuff out, the welcome succor of stupor eternally out of reach. I have no guide to accompany me, to show me a way forward or through. There are no Virgils to be had here, just a single coin I must guard with all my might, lest I become impossibly lost.

Thinking clearly in this place of darkness and despair is an unattainable goal. I could never have imagined sound so deafening that pain could pulse behind my eyes, blurring my vision and causing a throbbing ache throughout my entire body. I have dug my fingers so deeply into my ears that blood now coats the tips of them and floods my canals, yet the sound persists, as though it were within and a part of me and not merely a feature of my surroundings. I try to hold myself steady, to bestow my attention upon the coin, the single shred of possibility, my one constant, but the awesome pain begs for my heed. My flesh is under attack, my enemy invisible. Fire seems to be bursting from under my skin, with thousands of pustules pressing for eruption, percolating under the surface, festering boils erupting from my crackling, arid skin.

In my mouth is a taste so fowl it must be coming from within my bowls, lurking within me, awakening my senses with a most intolerable punishment. I am convinced that something within me has festered and died, if additional deaths are possible in this place, and I am now savoring the mortification of my very biology. How can such anguish, such horror, be possible? How could there be an even greater suffering following the curse that is life? How did I come to be in this place? A futile question, for the answer is forever on my lips. I keep repeating his name: Samuel… Samuel… Samuel… My tormenter, my savior, my castigator, my life giver, my accuser, my relief, my sentence.

Samuel was a shining beacon in a lightless world – he entered mine as though he had always been meant to find me, finally able to cease his hunt the day our lives converged. Samuel, the sun to my new moon, was everything that I was not – a demigod personified: trusting and open, kind and generous, faithful and good, so beautiful that Apollo himself would have punished him had he not been as smitten with him as was the rest of the world. How his light could even find its way to shine upon me I still cannot comprehend, yet it did and the warmth of it was glorious. I basked in his attention and devotion, I flourished under his gaze, I breathed anew and transformed under his watchful eye as though Ovid had orchestrated my metamorphosis. I wish I could conjure the smell of him, the taste of his tongue jousting with my own, the first time I breathed in the musk of his groin as I explored every inch of his body – alas, my lungs are filled with the ash and soot of no man’s land, refusing even my memories the solace of recollection.

How could someone as wretched as I ever have become the one to win over the prize that was Samuel? I knew that we did not fit, that he could not have been the other half that belonged to me seeking reunification. Yet, by some divination, Samuel seemed to believe that I could be that person. His conviction was so strong that not only was he unbothered, but he seemed not to take notice of the whispers and slanders thrown our way by dismayed creatures astonished by the match between the rival of Adonis and a creature unworthy of anything but disdain and dereliction. I knew this to be true: whatever spell Samuel was under, I had to play my part in maintaining the incantation. I dedicated my time to nurturing him and the precarious love we shared. Neglecting myself was of no cost, I was well used to it and could not fathom notions of pride or selfishness, entitlement was not a word that found a place in my personal vocabulary. Samuel’s approval and kindness were the intoxicating fruits of my labors. I could have lived a thousand lives powered solely by his gratitude and validation.

We spent years in this blissful existence. I cared for him, encouraged his endeavors, nurtured his every indulgence, and cultivated his interests in any way I could. I would have lost myself had I any self to lose. I was his Echo, my proximity to him is what brought purpose to my days. I had finally known happiness, had discovered a meaning to my otherwise pointless existence, and Samuel was the abode in which it thrived. I had never known hope or trust until I was finally enveloped in his bosom, his chest’s percussions became the metronome I set as my personal tempo. Our souls had grown into an ivy of love and passion so tightly entwined that we had turned into one.

I gaze, now, at my body and there is no ivy to be found, no Samuel to shelter me from the putrefaction that is taking hold of me. Samuel will never be one with me again. For a day came, a day like any other but as destined as the original curse of my birth, in which Samuel’s shine ceased to prefer me amongst all men. The change was sudden, the pain of which I had never imagined to be possible. Samuel had begun to love many others, his heart far too vast to belong to just one, yet limited enough to no longer include me among its numbers. He remained impossibly, unbearably, beautiful and good. I, then, must have been the author of the love’s demise, had not pulled the fair burden of our yoke to sustain the passion that once burned powerfully within us. His last embrace, the one that released me as his beloved, banished me from his presence – all I was able to take with me as I let go was the pendant that hung from his neck on a chain as golden as his hair. I knew that vital coin would make the crossing possible on the journey I was about to undertake. I knew what must be done.

Dreams can become broken, and new ones can be made of the splintered pieces, but I had no more dreams to call my own. Samuel was more than I ever could have designed. From the shards of the life I had once called ours I saw that my only option would be to release myself for evermore. The threads that once bound me to this world had to be severed – if the gods were not going to aid me in my transfiguration, I had to take matters into my own hands. I dug and tore inside of myself. With wild abandon I carved at my form, reversing my existence until all that had once belonged within me spilled and washed over, staining indelibly my surroundings with the baptism of my sorrow.

I don’t know how long it has been, how much time has passed between that day and now. Time no longer matters, perhaps it never did, it likely never will again. Passage on the vessel could mean salvation, a respite from the plagues of where I currently dwell. I know, though, that relief will never be possible, that my wretchedness is permanent and that without Samuel, in life and thereafter, survival is neither attainable nor desirable. I have made up my mind. I will let go of this cursed coin, drop it on the banks of this infernal riverbed, and I will join the merciless souls heaving for air from that canal of blood. My paradise has been lost and will never be regained. Affliction is the damnation I deserve. I must make haste. I mustn’t hesitate any longer.