Counting on my friends

I can count my friends on the fingers of one hand. I’m not unpopular; it’s just that I have a tendency to kill my friends. Not murder, you understand. It’s usually an accident that takes them away from me. I seem to invite bad luck into my life like some people invite trusted colleagues round for dinner parties – fairly regularly.

Consequently, word gets around and I find that friends soon become acquaintances and then distant acquaintances and soon enough they are strangers. Except they’re not.

They can’t act like real strangers, since they know about me; they know about my record with those that choose to get close to me. They know about the dark force that follows me around like a shadow. They become clairvoyant. They believe they can tell when death will come to collect them, to harvest them.

I am the bad apple in the barrel. It’s the drugs or it’s the voices; it’s the drink or it’s any number of vices that I have: drink driving, sword fighting while high on crystal meth, etc. The list goes on. Often I blackout and I don’t know what happens. The cops just shake their heads. There is no proof, no fingerprints: no evidence.

That’s why I’m writing to you. I’m looking for new friends.

Could that be you? Is it within the realms of possibility that someone can befriend me and not… I can’t bring myself to say it.

If you think you can help me, please write to me. Please come and visit. You’ll be perfectly safe here. I take care of visitors. It’s just that they don’t seem to take care of themselves.