As the sun would crawl over the endless piles of buildings and begin to glisten over the water in the canals, so few sounds could be heard. The earliest of the gondola drivers, the singing of the songbirds human and animal hanging onto a note outside their windows, and of course, myself walking along the sides of the roads. Over the bridges, home to home, as the orange sky would light my way, chills from the morning air making every hair on my legs and arms stand on end. This was my life, my work, and my livelihood to which I had devoted the last of my days. A simple messenger boy, not a man, a shell of a man once revered in greatness.

I do not dismiss the idea that I led a noble life, with a noble profession, because without a doubt I had served my purpose. Though this purpose being my true downfall, I\'ve learned to accept my fate, and such accepting that such a thing exists. Were it my fate to be tried by my God and put in such a position? Were it my fate that I even believe in fate at all? I suppose that adds the mystique element to the persuasive Fate herself, a theory that can be used to answer all. A God is she, used the same in all aspects. Worshiped as the end-all and be-all to our existence, a path that she herself had weaved and watches with a smile. To believe that our God, the God of Abraham, the God that spoke to Muhammed (pbuh) and the God that came down to us in human form would shape and torture our minds so, is blasphemy. Heresy of the highest order! And Fate cackles, if you listen, at how she toils with our minds and makes us doubt our own means.

Do I believe in God or Fate? It\'s hard to say really. Though a man who\'s accepted his fate must have accepted the absence of God in his life. Perhaps I\'ve done that; perhaps I\'ve sunk to the lowest of the barrel when I say that God exists, just not beside me. Such a simple idea really, angst and hate brewing inside a man could easily sway him to such words. The difference is it is unchanging for one such as myself, who takes any good turn in life as a stroke of luck and simply takes it in stride. What a laughable cruel existence I\'ve created for myself. How far I have fallen from heaven.

That also seems like an unreachable goal, heaven. Nirvana, Kevala, and all other forms of our ultimate end of religious uncertainty are unattainable for someone like me. Not because I am evil, not because I don\'t believe, but because I would rather feel pain, anguish and all that entails hell so that I can still create the illusion I am alive. Undoubtedly, a fiendish way to go would to be the road of ignorance. To forget the lessons that the spirit gathers on our human journey is to be pushed back and to learn again. Heaven is not about forgetting, it is not about bliss and happiness, it is security and serenity for the spirit, and if you do not learn this, you will be cast back to Earth, back to Hell! Because it is hell, if you had not learned. One can never experience eternal bliss without first tasting eternal suffering. Life is suffering, the Buddha taught us that, perhaps the only thing he ever needed to teach.

One would think that by my testimony thus far that I am unsatisfied with life, that I had accomplished nothing. I say this though; I have accomplished everything and more. I have had my wealth, my family, my happiness, and my women who would do nothing but pleasure me at the faintest whim. None of these can last forever though, and the truest strike that life can deal is to make a great man fall. Once a politician of the highest stature in the most bustling and growing part of New England, now a messenger on the streets of Venice. Though the local and simple lifestyle may be deceiving, it is the shame that I have lived through that truly burdens my heart, my very soul, and that burns cigarette holes into my being when I can fell those eyes watching me.

They say that these holes, created by men, are filled in with confidence and self-esteem. It seems that only I can truly see that we are all bore with holes, the kind that make us almost transparent. Even the children, blessed be their innocence, are matted and tattered with gaping holes put there by those who would seek them harm. Those who judge and keep their eyes, their horrible eyes fixated on not who they are, but what they could be. Such is the fault of humans, our inability to see without staining those whom we cast our gaze upon. These eyes have eaten through me like moths to a cloth, and I am ridden and desolate because of it. Politics is an evil companion, especially when it comes to competition, and your past will always catch up to you. Make no mistake that you will escape even the most subtle action when someone can use it against you. There is always someone watching, someone\'s eyes are always staring. The real sin is they go unnoticed. If I had only felt those eyes on me as I touched her tender skin and made love to her under the beautiful moonlight. If only I had felt the eyes as I kissed her on the lips and smeared her fresh lipstick, as she would carelessly head to work.

Am I a sinner? In the eyes of God, my God, I am damned. For I feel no regret, no remorse for what I did to my wife, or what I didn\'t do. Though it damns me to see what it has done to my son. I have not only killed myself, I\'ve killed my son! The only thing that\'s left of him is what was of me, a shell.

Those that knew me best would say that I was a man of few words. Perhaps in life, but now in death I see that it is most important to utilize our languages. For if we have nothing, we have our stories, and the stories we have carried on throughout the ages. Fabricated, or simply just changed through years of interpretation, these stories become the basis for our existence. Simply living to repeat the past, in tongue and in action. Yet, I digress, because though the importance of words must not be forgotten, we must also not forget that words are expensive. Every syllable and every letter must be carefully chosen to create our works of art. This is more known to me now, a dead man. Ironic that only in death do we truly appreciate life.

I was once alive...