My closest friend (RIP) had no arms and no legs He lost them at age 21 after working in a sugar refinery for 3 years That day, a fire broke out The factory owners failed to realize that the gradual accumulation of dry, refined sugar dust spread around the factory floor was combustible The blast was severe. Although my friend lived, the tissue damage to all 4 of his limbs was so significant that quadruple amputation was necessary within weeks He spent 7 months in hospital I didn’t know him well before this. Funnily, he was an online chess student of mine, who I found out lived only 30 minutes away After he told me what happened, I visited him. And after a few more visits, he told me that my presence lifted his spirits the most, so I carried on visiting him weekly The staff would tell me they had never seen a more horrific case than his. Almost nothing could take away the pain. I was just glad to provide some friendship and distraction During my visits, I often just sat with him in silence when he was too tired or depressed to talk But sometimes, when he was up to it, I would refocus his mind by teaching him some chess, or by telling him to describe to me the beautiful places he would like to visit, or goals he would like to achieve, or the ways he would like to touch the hearts of others Sometimes, while he was describing these things out loud, he seemed to be completely outside of his body and happy again But after, he would crash back down to his body with a shock, and feel sad it was only imagination I told him I had a deep intuition that he would use everything that happened to him to inspire others He said he hoped that would be true He also became fond of making up fables and stories When I visited, sometimes he would make them up in the moment, and other times he would share something he had been working on in his mind One of the nurses, Vanessa, also developed a liking for him over time I arrived one time to find her leaning over his bed, giggling as he smiled at her. I retreated to the waiting room, not wanting to interrupt anything that made him feel a little more alive When he left hospital, they carried on talking. After 6 months, she moved in with him I knew she would take great care of him He was quiet for 6 months. Then one day, he rang me out of the blue to say he had completed a book of short stories He said that our conversations had made him realize how much he loved stories, and how much he wanted to be a writer He said it’s a good thing he lost all his limbs in 2021, because now speech-to-text exists I smiled He told me he had been working on it secretly, when Vanessa was working, and would show her the first draft later that day The next day, he rang me, severely depressed He told me what happened “As soon as she began reading the book, she began to cry The first story was about a fish who longs to walk on land, and a fox who longs to swim in the ocean She told me that it was clearly it was about my dissatisfaction with our relationship The second story was about a peacock who is smug about his feathers, and laughs at a humble blackbird who spends the summer collecting all the peacocks discarded feathers to make a nest. When winter comes, the peacock has no feathers left, while the blackbird has a beautiful young family warm in the nest She told me that this story means I believe she is ugly and that her beauty will soon fade… What he described to me were some of the most beautiful stories I have ever heard He told me she was so upset by page 100 that he decided to permanently delete his entire 400+ page book of stories He loved her too much for his writing to hurt her In the morning, she broke up with him. She said that she had never felt more disrespected and unloved than reading his book. She told him she hated him The next day, finding himself without the love of his life, without the incredible book he had written, and without his legs/arms, he ended his own life.