The King of the Dying Years sang to himself, for he was dying more gloriously than anyone else could possibly have imagined.
“Dirty old man, shit! Who you lookin’ at wrinkly, eh?”
“Myself!” Said I, in extreme icy quiet! “King of the Dying years at your service!” (For past eccentricities are not forgiven in the vigorous, youthful present, not forgiven by the burning ardour of stupid adolescent obsession.) “Hurt me if you can, ignoramus! Infuse me with life, though you know of no life to infuse! Shoot me up with worthless youth, though your fetid youth be so ugly! Beat some genuine feeling into this shrunken shadow, though sentiment ceaselessly escapes you! Wound me into some semblance of a reaction! Do one last thing for me for I cannot do it for myself. For I cannot do it. For I cannot. Myself. Touch me if you can, for I can no longer be touched!”
“Hey! Scumbag! Who you staring out, eh?”
“You!” Stared I back in extreme silence. “Touch me if you can!” (For my daughters are gone, tired and unforgiving of the same old stories, and I never laid a finger on them, or in them come to that. Never even thought about it until just now, ‘till just now when I saw through you, through those dead, empty teenage eyes. I could almost have felt sorry for you if what there were there were not simply so pathetic.) The King of the Dying Years sang to himself, “....the voyeur and the leopards, the toucher and the touched....our prowling eyes upon it all....”
“Hey, you! You! You askin’ for trouble?”
“As always, girl!” Was my imperious retort. (And I was not surprised at the tone of my voice, for my darling wife is gone, for she it was who kept me on the straight and narrow. And my old friends, they are all gone now, every last one.) “So do one last thing for me, will you? For I cannot do it for myself! Come on! Touch me!”
“Touch you?”
"Touch me!"
