When I came in, he was sitting there, like he was waiting for something. Not like he was waiting for something big, it’s like he was sitting at the mechanic’s while they changed his oil. Hands crossed bare over his lap, short stare in his eyes, not like he was lost in thought, but like he was actually looking at something. Whatever it was I couldn’t see it.

I’ll go out on a limb and say you probably know why I’m here.

He turned his head, his eyes focused, a small smile crawled onto his face.

You’d be correct.

I always hated the formalities, when they came up. It was nice, that once, to have someone just get the point off the bat so I could leave the cat and mouse shit alone another day.

After the formalities was always when I checked the place out, to find the materials in question. He was a smart one. He turned his head to the door I’d just walked through, turned his face away from mine, and said

You’ll find what you’re looking for in my old office box on the bed.

I nodded softly and walked towards the only open door, at the end of the hall, presumably into the room I needed to get to. I noticed he turned his head back into the other room before I got to the door.

I figured today would be the day. I know you all lie on the notices. I felt it deep in my bones, like a cat when he goes under the porch. I knew when my time would come.

This gave me some pause.

How do you mean?

Well, an old fortune teller once told me, long time ago, when I was a real drinking man still, that my vices would get me in the end. If only I could’ve listened.

I didn’t know what to say. I walked through the door and sat down on the bed next to the box. I opened the lid and found what I hoped I would find.

Listen, in those days, when I got called to go to a house, like, look. Those types were always prone to some kind of tricks. When I started working for those handlers they’d always only ever refer to them as “subversives.” I never realized how genuine and literal the term was until I was in the field and really dealing with them. They would try absolutely fucking everything to keep me from finding “it.” “It” could be anything, a journal, the upper shelf of a closet, shed out back, or, in this case, a box.

So, anyways, I opened the thing and it was full, like nearly overflowing, with loose leaf paper. I started taking them out, examining them carefully, one at a time. Most of the ones on top were poems, short, kind of disjointed. About longing, or being trapped. It was only once I got maybe a few dozen in that I started realizing all the ones I’d picked out were poems. I picked up the box and dumped it out onto the bed and started frantically sorting through it. All of them were poems. I mean all of them. There were thousands, tens of thousands. I sat and read some of them, like really read them. I remember the phrase “his caress” coming up a lot. I can’t remember at what point I started crying. I’d “really read” lots of them at that point. Not just about “his caress” but how they’d “meet in another world, sometime.” That they’d “brush shoulders and smile at each other at some other point in some other incarnation.” I remember reading the line “we’d meet in every universe, every timeline, every cycle of reincarnation. we have only each other.” before I’d started really crying.

At some point after the crying started, he crept into the room quietly and sat down on the bed. I was bawling by the time he put his hand on my shoulder.

Now, now.

I didn’t want to do it at all anymore. I didn’t want to do any of it anymore. I turned to the man and put my arms around him and he embraced me back.

I’m sorry that I’m not making it easy for you. I wish I could’ve known you would read so many of them. From all the stories I hear you guys tend to take it on faith, not really look into the stuff.

It was at this moment that a realization came to me. A couple weeks back I’d dealt with some older guy, probably the same age as this one or right about there, and he’d written lots of poetry too. He’d kept it in the same kind of box, except he’d written fewer of them, and they were all longer. I skimmed some of them, and realized the names alluded to both in his and this current one’s poems were the same.

I stood up then, my eyes so blurry from all the tears that I nearly tripped on all the paper on the floor, but caught myself on the doorframe. Through all my tears, straining

Did you know?

What, that it was you?

Yeah.

Well, I didn’t know you before now. But I’d known it was someone of your... occupation. I knew he didn’t just vanish. I didn’t bother asking anyone any questions.

I crumpled to my knees then, banging my fists on the ground and screaming out to a god, a god with a name I did not know. That I could someday be bereft of the terrible weight on my soul.

I can’t imagine how you feel, but I do know that if it wasn’t you it would be someone else.

What do you mean?

Like I told you, I’ve known since forever that my vices would kill me, she told me that very certainly, with that look in her eye that I couldn’t mistake. I knew from the day I met him that, somehow, he was going to kill me. Of course, then, before all this (he gestured around the room) happened, I couldn’t have imagined how such a thing could happen, but I did know it. Even as I loved him, more than I ever thought myself capable of loving someone, and giving so much up to make him happy, destroying my whole life to spend it with him, that he would be the end of me.

I looked at him then, my vision suddenly clear. He looked back at me.

I knew it, and because I knew it I welcome it. He’s gone, my one and only. I have nothing left, this empty apartment, the few books I’ve been allowed to keep from these past 10 years, my rations. I am not long for this world. I can only thank you for freeing me from all this.

He gestured at the bare walls of the bedroom. As I looked up at him, I knew he was right. There was nothing left for him here. I got up, dusted myself off, everything was clear.

Now, let me clarify, I didn’t want to do it. I really didn’t. There was something so desperate in him, in his empty apartment, his blank stare, his wan smile, it all disarmed me. Even when he told me he wanted to go, even when I believed him and knew he was right it wasn’t easy. I really didn’t want to. You have to believe me.

But orders are orders.