On my street lives an old man with an evil reputation as a one-time dangerous criminal. This is the account of my unexpected compassion for him ......

"Mass murderer! Sirius Black - age 28, IMPRISONED!"

I was rifling through a pile of tattered, parched newspapers, as if perusing and examining certain antique pieces of a curio shop, when a particularly small, cut-out portion of an article, sporting the aforementioned headline and a picture, drew my unwavering attention. I trained my eyes on the picture - a mane of matted untidy and tangled hair lay scattered around an otherwise-handsome face. His murderous stare and power-hungry expression justified the accusation framed against him, ordurously.

Forty years hence, I was in my drawing room, one day, when the doorbell rang ... I peeped out through the keyhole and saw an old man - the neighbour of mine, living on my street, who preferred to keep himself incognito. But, I had heard from others that he was at one time, a dangerous criminal, imprisoned for a tenure of five years and let loose in an angry state. I reluctantly opened the door and let him in ..... and faced a person I had never in any nightmare thought to come face-to-face with.

A mass of tangled, white hair lay in a mess on his forehead, that had carried the burden of so many fatal turnings and destined disasters. His hands had committed what his mind had not told, his eyes had seen what his conscience had never bidden for, and slowly, as time rolled by, the man unravelled a mystery of his life history. The gaps he left between two tales, was a silence, heightened and fostered, in some strange way, by his mere quiescence. He told me how he had been robbed of his parents early in life. He confided in me his filial sentiments.

After his parents' bodies had undergone post-mortem, he had come to know that the reason for his being an orphan was murder. As the murderer was unknown and was probably biding his time in the dark, Sirius had been seething with an angry desire to prove himself capable of avenging his parents. Thus, he had started the rampage with several minor killings in the town, where his parents had been murdered. Then, there was this mass murder in the City's Assembly Hall!.....

I felt a judicious amount of sympathy for the man ... he was a loner in life now, a man given much to killing and slaughtering. Now, he had grown old, and looking back at his useless sixty eight years, he feels himself fit for hell ... I consoled him, because I understood, there was no one there to lend him a pardoning conscience, a listening ear, an advising will. I asked him to have dinner with me and two hours later, a one-time dangerous criminal was chatting animatedly with me, at my dinner table, between mouthfuls of a delicacy which, co-incidentally, he too loved!