Before Tomorrow

Today, ah to live among its first most joyous hour of content, brings bliss to my restless heart.  Alas, so few there are who wake to view its darkest beauty, to hear its inaudible sounds, to know its inscrutable knowledge.  I would that this, my first meeting with the early morn, should be not, too, my last.  For I ponder not upon my life in these early hours out of habit, but out of necessity do I sit at this, my only window to the outside world, discovering a beauty not witnessed yet by living man.
    Ah! I would that my fate was evitable, though sadly it is not so.
    I know that it is through my eyes - and mine eyes only - that you shall comprehend my pain.  Yet, perhaps I should not befoul so perfect a morning with so sorrowful a tale, were it not, regretfully, my grim fate to do so.  For I am a cursed man, who ever walks in the pit of fallen souls.  And so, upon this knowledge I found my narrative, so that what has come to pass shall not die from memory upon the morrow.  But it shall live on in this, my memoir to the beautiful and terrible world which hath sentenced me.

    If I must start, I must start with the beginning, in my young life.  As a child, I was praised as a prodigy.  At the tender age of six I had already read and comprehended more books than the average man will do in thrice my years.  I - to all but my own eyes - seemed to sail the course to greatness.  But my life was destined to change...
    I never saw him directly in that first meeting, I just knew of his presence.  Its was in the autumn of my seventh year, on a morning after rain when all the world lies shrowded in mist and rising vapors.  I was playing on the school grounds alone - as normal - when I heard a voice - a calm, soothing voice, that was faintly familiar.  It seemed - or at least I imagined it seemed to be coming from behind me, maybe somewhere in the woods, so I rose from my silent ritual and walked nearer to the forest.
    As I approched, I fancied I heard a noise within desturbing the silence of that realm.  For a moment I stayed myself, doubting what I heard, but I felt drawn to go into that forest - and I did.  I walked upon that wooded ground making hardly a noise for fear I would disturb the one within.  When I had walked for but a few moments I came across a small puddle.  I stood there listening and waiting for another whisper or sound to alert me to the presence which I sensed, but it did not come.
    After a few moments I dismissed the thought and began to study the waters at my feet.  I knelt and as I stared into the world within I noticed a face reflected in the ripples.  I could not see it clearly for the water in that pool was murky.  The figure seemed to be floating above me - like an angel - staring down with the same intentness as I into that forsaken spring.  His blurred features looked so familiar - not unlike my twin - though I know I have none.  And he was crowned with a silver halo - like the light through trees on a cloudy day.
    I then made a move to face my company but felt with a sudden thought that a force was stopping me.  Transfixedly I stared at the stranger who said nothing for a long while.  Then he began to speak and as he did I felt my lips repeating the words - almost as though they knew with their own thought what to say.  He uttered but few words to me in all that while in the forest, but those few words have shaped the remainder of my life, unto my dying day.  He whispered, "Those thou lovest, shall die at thine own hand."  And yes these words spoke true...

    I did not see that stranger again for many months-or if I did, I did not recognize him, for, as was said, the water in that pool was murky.  But I remembered that encounter forever after as clear as the falling rain that oft has washed my blood drenched clothes.