Have mercy on me, sir, allow me to impose on you. I have no place to stay
and my bones are cold right through. I will tell you a story of a man and his family and I swear that it is true: Ten years ago I met a girl named Joy, she was a sweet and happy thing. Her eyes were bright blue jewels and we were married in the spring. I had no idea what happiness and little love could bring or what life had in store, but all things move toward their end... On that you can be sure... Then one morning I awoke to find her weeping and for many days to follow she grew so sad and lonely... Became Joy in name only. Within her breast there launched an unnamed sorrow and a dark and grim force set sail... Was it an act of contrition or some awful premonition as if she saw into the heart of her final blood-soaked night those lunatic eyes, that hungry kitchen knife... Ah, I see sir, that I have your attention! Well, could it be? How often I've asked that question well, then in quick succession we had babies, one, two, three. We called them Hilda, Hattie and Holly, they were their mother's children, their eyes were bright blue jewels and they were quiet as a mouse. There was no laughter in the house: no, not from Hilda, Hattie or Holly. "No wonder", people said, "poor mother Joy's so melancholy". Well, one night there came a visitor to our little home. I was visiting a sick friend. I was a doctor then. Joy and the girls were on their own. Joy had been bound with electrical tape, in her mouth a gag. She'd been stabbed repeatedly and stuffed into a sleeping bag. In their very cots my girls were robbed of their lives - method of murder much the same as my wife's. It was midnight when I arrived home, said to the police on the telephone, someone's taken four innocent lives. They never caught the man, he's still on the loose. It seems he has done many many more... Quotes John Milton on the walls in the victim's blood... The police are investigating at tremendous cost in my house he wrote his red right hand... That, I'm told is from Paradise Lost the wind round here gets wicked cold but my story is nearly told I fear the morning will bring quite a frost and so I've left my home, I drift from land to land, I am upon your step and you are a family man outside the vultures wheel the wolves howl, the serpents hiss and to extend this small favour, friend, would be the sum of earthly bliss. Do you reckon me a friend?
