Two friends walked down a red-brick path,
a common destination.
Yet one of these, no figure hath:
a slight hallucination.
At journey’s outset he appeared,
the Naked Eye could see.
Lo! He developed, as he feared,
a slight translucency.
With every step these two friends took,
he decreased in his complexion,
‘Till finally, you couldn’t look,
and see this friend’s abjection.
The first pressed on along his way,
as if he didn’t know,
the suffering of slow decay,
his friend now couldn’t show.
And so it was, so shall it be,
this parable come true.
This Phantom of a friend was me,
and once my friend were you.