A friend is a friend?

So I was following the low road home, and a good friend of mine cast me into a deep hole in the ground.
  I begged them, 'Please help me get up!' but they laughed and walked away.
  So there I remained, for an hour or so.  Then vast hands dragged me down, and I saw a terrible monster, huge in stature, great in power, hideous in malice.
  I was dragged through a great canyon of gloom, this journey lasted days, finally we stopped and then the monster held my head down in a pool of darkness, till I almost chocked.
  Then I was brought up and nailed to a charred tree - lightning struck me for three days.
  Then tiny creatures crawled into my flesh - a grasshopper made camp on my tongue, and whispered in my mouth - "fools be fools!"

Then a bird made a nest on my head, and plucked out pieces of my hair to keep the nest warm.
  "Let me live in your hair for two weeks,' said the bird to me.  'Let my hatch lings grow.  And when they are gone, I promise to give you my wings and my claws.  And then you can go forth and wreck vengeance.'
  So I waited two weeks - and with my wings finally grown I pulled myself out of the tree, and made my way into the skies, and looked down upon a world of scuttling beetles.
  And for sometime I swirled among the vapours, and when I spied my quarry I came down like a sheet of light, for I had seen the bold crown of my ageing foe - "Remember me?" I whispered in his ear.  "I will go easy on you - for my heart knows pain."
  And I struck out his eyes and when he stumbled he fell into the deep hole in the ground, and when he hit the bottom he broke his neck - and his suffering ended in one go.
  And I flew away, happy that I shown mercy to my lost friend of old, and then I found a tree and built a new kingdom there!
  The rest of the story is told in the leaves that decorated the floor last autumn....

THE END