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Description
A man of average stature walked into the pub. His worn face was exaggerated by dark circles under the hollow of his dimming eyes. He wore a old torn coat that look like it was scavenged from the nearest trash can. His smile was as faded as his eyes, his movements haggard and dragged out. Smelly jeans weakly gripped his long legs and he wore a brown hat, folded at the right edge. Snugly fitted between the hat itself and the folded edge was a twenty dollar bill.

The common folks in the pub were silenced by his eerie presence; he didn't belong here, this remnant of what once was a man. No-one spoke as this fellow walked toward the juke box, down a tiled isle with the occasional astrew bottle-cap or carelessly dropped napkin. He plucked the twenty from his hat and screamed, in a vibrant voice that startled every man, and woman, that heard it, "DRINKS ON ME!"

Cheers met his unusual offer, beers being raised happily into the air by mostly drunk hands. With the change the stranger received he turned on the juke box, playing a song renowned at the time; "We Didn't Start The Fire". Slowly, this newfound friend of the local drunks, turned this pub into a party, and from a party into a home. Folks danced in the narrow isles, entranced by this stranger who turned them into jewels, who momentarily took them from a life they avoided by drowning their wits in beer and gave them something to live for.

By night, everyone wanted to know the stranger's name, but he simply shook his head with a weary smile on his face. Soon the drunks filed out, unusual in that there were no brawls and twice as many drunken folks. The bartender who sat silently dazed behind the counter, and yet contented with his many tips smiled and asked a question.

"What's your name, stranger?" He said it so confidently, as if the man would give him the information although the rest were denied.

"Michael Bohemen."
And with that, Michael Bohemen left the pub and went home.

The next day a rope was found, tightly gripping the pale neck of Michael Bohemen in his one-room apartment.