I’M SCRIBBLING THIS note in the hotel room while I wait for the doctor to return, anxious to finish this story before he reappears and I can begin swallowing the morphine I’ve carried for so long for just such an occasion. Yes, this is where it all ends. I’m very close now, I can feel it. These words will be my last. They will be the ending to this book. Of course, the prospect of an ending makes me anxious. My ailing heart is beating quicker than it ought. I think of Madeleine and my heart weeps and is consoled at once. The end of one story is merely the beginning of another.

Don’t swallow a thing until I return, he said. Rest assured, doctor, that I will follow your advice. I’ve noticed something about you. At a time when no one dares look anyone in the eye, you do so brazenly, with the certainty that your time has come, that your ideas have carried the day. So when you reappear, I will invite you to take a seat on the chair opposite mine. On my lap I will be holding this manuscript. When you are seated, I will give it to you and ask you to hold it while I take the morphine. Then, pills in one hand and glass of water in the other, I will swallow them calmly one by one. And as I wait for death to take hold, I will ask you a question.

“Doctor,” I will say, “will you grant a dying man one last wish?”

“It depends on the wish,” you will say.

“Oh,” I’ll say, “this wish is the simplest anyone has ever asked for. You won’t even have to get out of your chair.”

“Very well, what is it?”

“I would like you to look me straight in the eyes and tell me exactly why it is that you hate me so.”

THE END

Tales of the Albatross

Alula

Born circa 1771

First crossing 1791

Second crossing circa 1840

Died circa 1840