voilà, a story that seems terribly unoriginal and perhpas not even a story:

Dear diary,

Our discussion had stretched toward the early morning smell of freshly baked bread and French pastries. Outside, the fresh crisp fingers of nighttime were relinquishing their grasp on the world little by little. The floor was cluttered with poetry and more than one enquiry concerning the nature of our souls. The conversation had once again found its way back to the subject of an evil deceiver whose eternity was filled with the delight of constantly fooling us into believing that this world was a real one. That our senses did indeed exist and gave us accurate information about the surrounding universe. My stomach growled, recognizing that a sun’s rise and fall had occurred without its having seen a single meal, while Jean-Baptiste Viaud reminded me that for all he knew, I was either nonexistent or perhaps even the evil deceiver himself. I replied that for all I knew, the same could be said about him. The aroma of another fresh morning crept into the small barren apartment. I looked upon the two francs and seventy centimes that remained of this week’s wages and we both sighed knowing that half a baguette split two ways would only be enough to whet our appetites making us even hungrier. I toyed with the smooth and sharp silver blade, the only remaining piece of my mother’s mother’s fine utensils, which had been bought in Austria many lives ago. In jest, I told Jean-Baptiste that one of us should slit the other’s throat, as autrui either did not exist at all, or was, in fact, the deceiver. This, so that one of us could continue his existence without the annoyance of the imaginary and duping world of hunger around us.

~*~

To be completely honest, I do not know if it was I that murdered him, or he that murdered me that morning.