"How then?"

Prepared with love.

Amadeus had little going on for himself. I'm not much of a man, it's the sort of things he kept repeating in front of the mirror. Not that he minded, some people were meant to stay in the background and never become a main character. Amadeus had that sort of stoic fatalism to help him going through the day. If not me, then somebody else gets to stand in the light, and I'm happy for them.

"I expect more from you," she would say. She, Amadeus' boss at work.

The hardest part was the lack of purpose. If he had to remain on the sidelines, then at least someone should tell him how a sideline character keeps himself occupied. The routine of work, sleep and loneliness didn't cut it, and at 40, Amadeus' stoicism had trouble withholding the assault of a budding mid-life crisis.

And then the voice made itself know. Maybe it was always there, waiting. Or he had been lucky. Or a myriad of other possibilities, the voice didn't specify, and Amadeus didn't ask. Their conversations were few, but they gave Amadeus what he had been longing for: a purpose.

Rare meat. No, raw meat, it would sometimes say.

An ephemeral whim, perhaps. But an original objective still. So Amadeus put the dead cat in the center of a crudely carved offering bowl. Nothing happened.

Until he watched elsewhere.

And the corpse was gone. He felt disappointed to not see the body disappear.

Dreadfully sorry, said the voice, reality-breaching happenings have a tendency to break human's sanity beyond any hope of repairing.

"And a permanent voice in my head doesn't?"

If you think you're sane, you might want to look into the mirror.

Amadeus looked and saw himself. That's the problem with sane and insane, it doesn't always show on the outside.

"I expect more from you," of course, a mysterious voice in his head didn't absolve Amadeus from working to pay the bills.

It liked Pork, marinated duck and loathed chicken. More than all of this though, it adored the love Amadeus put into his cooking. It loved the effort and dedication he went through to serve proper meals. And the voice loved him back in turn.

"I expect more from you," it was the last time Amadeus heard the boss' words, as he held her high by the throat with a strength beyond any definition of sane, her feet dangling above the floor, her eyes turning to fog and life leaving her.

Now that's a treat!

Everyone suspected him, but he was never bothered. Nobody found the body.

Amadeus was a murderer now, with only his conscience to judge him. A conscience dimmed by exhilaration.

He felt like a man.

I think you and I can come to an agreement.

"That, we do."

The days had a shine to them now. No judge, no jury, only the executioner. Although, there was a slight judging involved. Here stood a blond fellow, tall, muscular, so terribly successful in love, in sports, at life. But he was nice, so Amadeus let him be.

Here was another with dark hair, even larger, with a brutish look on his face. And Amadeus got to know him, silently. Without words, he learned.

We rarely talk lately. Then again, maybe I was never there at all.

And when Amadeus learned what an asshole he was looking at, it wasn't long until the brute's two feet were dangling above the ground, as his throat was crushed.

Amadeus was content staying in the background. But he was very picky about who got to be a main character.