First, every lit window in the city pulsed like the strobelights of the world's greatest rave. Second, they flickered like fireflies over the lake. Third, they ceased to be visible at all. A second passed, and with sight gone only the other senses remained:

The sound of a loud indifferent crack, followed by a distant thud.

The smell of gunpowder, and metal.

The feeling of air rushing into the lungs of the bystander as he gasped.

"Why do that?" he asked through a breath.

"It's my job," another voice ambled through the dark, alongside the rough slap of metal and plastic on concrete.

"Not that. Not what you did, but when you did it. You fired after the lights went out."

"And so I did, " the sound of rummaging, canvas and a zipper. The crinkling of clothes.

" Why waste a shot?"

" There was no waste."

" How could you know?"

"I know."

"How though? How could you track him in the dark? Does that scope have night vision?"

The sound of dress shoes snapping against the ground, louder with each step. The cold breeze of something moving quickly next to one's face. The sensation of something cold pressed against the eye socket of the bystander.

"Do you see anything?" The voice no longer ambled. Now it marched.

" No," the bystander confessed. It felt like a confession.

"No night vision, then."

"Then how?"

"Why do you care to know?"

"It was beautiful."

"I am going to kill you for what you saw."

"I know."

"You still wish to know?"

"I do."

Then, the sound of rubbing cotton, and diminishing footsteps. A sigh, and a grunt, "that's a good start."

The bystander sat too, "you sound old."

"I am old."

"Before, seeing your hood, and your posture, I wouldn't have guessed it."

"I was not so old in those moments. In all others, I am."

"What did you mean that it is a good start? What is? Wishing to know?"

"Yes, for that is how it was done. I too wished to know. I wanted to know him."

"The dead man."

"There is no such thing as a dead man, only a corpse. I wished to know the living one, the one who ceases to exist. I wanted to know everything about him. His favourite cereal. What makes him nervous as he drives to work. The thing he liked to look at most through the window in his office. The reason he preferred his secretary to his wife. Everything."

"I see."

"It was cinnamon toast crunch, by the way. Though, he would have told you it was raisin bran. Cyclists when they didn't have appropriate reflective gear. The newspaper stand down the street. And the way she smelled like his mother."

"You almost sound like you love him"

"I almost did. I almost didn't almost."

"You killed someone you loved?"

"Of course. It's a prerequisite. I always love those I kill. I wouldn't be able to kill them otherwise."

"I see."

"Are you beginning to understand?"

"So you watched him?"

"For a very long time."

"You knew him."

"I knew him beyond the past and the present. I knew him into the future. I could tell you where he would be standing now if he still lived."

"Then that's how you did it. You didn't need to see where he would be."

"In that moment I didn't need any senses at all."

"And what about you?"

"What about me?" the older man said, his voice followed by a cough and a grumble.

"How do you find your job?"

"I love it, too, most of the time. It is only painful in very short bursts."

"Like now?"

"Like now."

"Have you been doing it long?"

"Exceptionally."

"is it dangerous?"

"How so?"

"You must work with criminals, gangsters, killers, that sort."

"Yes."

"How many of them are as old as you?"

"None."

"How many are close?"

"Also none."

"What is your secret for survival?"

"I don't know."

"I think I do."

Another loud bang, followed by a much closer thud than the previous one. The whirring of fans on the rooftop of a skyscraper. The restoration of power. The return of vision.

The bystander stood with his arm outstretched, his hand wrapped around the grip of a handgun. The old man lay on the concrete next to the ledge, and a case holding a sniper rifle. The blood looked clinical rather than dramatic in the roof's harsh light. It spilled from the old killer's abdomen.

"I've enjoyed getting to know you, Michael," the bystander said, his eyes wet, "do you understand now? Your unfortunate technique."

"Yes, I see now," the old man whispered, more to the ground than his companion.

The bystander knelt down next to his face and cradled it in his hands.

They whispered in unison, then, "to never have been loved."

The lights vanished once more, as clouds rolled overhead. A crack that could have been mistaken for thunder leapt out into the night.