03/30/2006

Moving swiftly and silently I pierce the darkness and pass the security unseen...look around...smile ...and withdraw slowly until my shadow is all that is left.

"Fear not", I whisper, "for the perimeter is mine."


03/31/2006

With the shadows now my own, I watch as a star rises in the north coating the world with a glow indistinguishable from hope. It guides me closer to is flame until I pollute its purity with insecurity and it leaves me as it has found me...alone. Having been left to the shadows once more, I pray...and await its return...ever fearful of the dawn...until I hear the echoing of my princess' laughter...And as hope is slowly rebuilt, I look north once again...awaiting the stars return... ... ... ... forever hopeful.


04/01/2006

With the sun breaking over the horizon I see my shadow wither, and begin to fade. So I retreat deeper into the darkness, but soon I find my limit, and I am forced to wait for my exposure.

As I wait I wonder at what secrets I will lose to the sun, and at what has been forever lost to the night. Then a breeze dances past me in a blissful swirl, and suddenly I am at ease.

No longer entranced by what was, and what may be, I focus on the now…and touching the breeze gently while the morning glow bathes my wounds, I find a place to saver my reprieve, and await the next shadow to fall…"Thank you, " I whisper, "I shall not forget you…"


04/03/2006

A Wicked silence breaks with the day, leaving me to search the deserted hallways of my mind alone. Blinded by my own knowledge, I see nothing and everything while slipping meaninglessly into oblivion. Then a dream returns, and taking hold of my hand it lifts me up and carries me away from the quagmire of my existence..

It calls me Never, and I see the smile that spreads across its blank expression. Not a wicked grin, not a mocking grin, but a mirth filled grin, pure and infectious. So, with the pale and stark mind scape slipping away beneath me, I find myself begin to smile, and marvel at the act.

"Where are you taking me?" I ask, but no answer comes.


04/07/2006

My descent was quick as the dream let me go. I fell for what seemed a moment, but it lasted far longer, and when my feet finally touched the ground I found that I had not been carried that far.

As I wandered, trying to understand where I had been deposited, I came upon a tree standing singularly upon the barren landscape. The tree's bark had faded to a sickened gray, and its long dead leaves had become the powder lifted by the wind and scattered into oblivion. Beneath the trees outstretch, and gnarled branches sits the shadow of what may have been a man. I feel the momentary pinch of sorrow and empathy, but it is quickly replaced by anger.

"Where have you brought me, " I scream into the nothing.


04/14/2006

I knew before the echo had faded that my words had gone too far. The silence that followed was deafening and grim. I searched for the tree, but it had been replaced by darkness. The ground replaced with fire, and the air became acidic.

I waded through the fire but found no relief. I found myself wishing to cry so that I could have a little moisture in my veins, but to no avail. And as I felt myself drifting deeper into the blaze I spied a smile (not wicked, but stern) glinting down on me, but like the Cheshire Cat, it was gone before I truly had seen it.

"Are you still Here?" I asked of no one, but no answer came. "I am sorry," I went on, but still no answer came.


05/15/2006

Wandering, I passed by small misty shapes that would scurry playfully away in front of me, as if the feared being trod on. They made no sound, but their silence was affecting me much like the shrill screams of the once fabled Banshee. I say, "Once fabled", of course, because I have come to realize that the land in which I have no found myself is capable of producing any creature. All that is needed is an unsuspecting imagination.

The land feeds off of the very energy produced by thought. Dreams can come true , and nightmares can rend the dreamer before the sleeping eyes are able to open and see their attacker. Because of this, my nights are spent fitfully tossing and turning in a vein attempt to keep my thoughts from becoming the dreaded dreams. For here there is nothing to produce pleasantry, but there is much to produce the other.

So I wander. From desolate landscape, to desolate landscape in search of anything that will provide me with answers. Answers such as the identity of the one who brought me here, and for what reason I was brought. I feel that the reason is close. Like I am beside it, yet it is invisible to me. At times I feel that I am being followed, yet when I turn to see...there is nothing, and no one there.

Is it this place, or has my mind finally slipped into the nothing of chaos?

"Help me," I call, but again no answer comes. "Help me to understand," I call again, but silence is the only responder...so once again I wander...avoiding sleep...


05/19/2006

I awoke to find myself adrift on a raft of my minds creation, and as I cursed myself for falling asleep, I began searching the horizons for my salvation. What I found, however, was impossible to the rationality I once held for the world, and candy to the ever loosening weave of my mind. For I was not adrift on a body of water, but on an ever shifting expanse of sand.

Another desert had claimed my passage. This one, however, was an undulating, shifting, and tortured expanse, far removed from the hard packed dirt of my first crossing. And the craft I had chosen to navigate the insanity in appeared to be the hollowed out skull of some giant and nameless beast. Its teeth were reaching skyward from the upturned jaw as if beckoning me to look, so I did, and there it was...

High in the pail blue of the morning sky I saw the traveler. The very same traveler who had brought me to this place, was now passing over me as if no blame belonged to it. I still do not know if it represented man or woman, though woman came to my minds eye easily, but I knew it meant me harm. It meant to leave me here until I learned whatever lesson it deemed fit for my attention.

"Curse you," I yelled, but the thing simple sailed away on the breezes of the day. Disappearing into the void of the suns glare. "Curse you," I whispered as my voyage continued.


05/24/2006

With night once again creeping toward me through the blood red glow of the dying sun, I began to wonder at the pounding waves of sand. They had earlier been brutal, as if trying to tear my craft apart, but now they have become calmer, almost gentle. The calm before the storm, or the end of the tribulation...the first I think.

And then it came again. That dark shadow, drifting and fluttering in it condescending, and mocking fashion. I watched as it came to a stop above me, letting the wind hold it in place, and then dove down upon me. Panicked, I dropped to the floor of my craft only to see the shape stop just above me and smile a wicked smile.

"What do you want from me?" I asked shakily, but again no answer comes.

"Tell me, beast, what is it you want!?!"

The shape simply stayed silent, watching me until a shallow rasp of sound emerged from its frayed cowl. "Payment," It said, "payment for all you have done to me."

I could not believe that the thing had spoken, but more than that I could not believe the words. "What I have done to you?" I called. "What have I done to you? I don't even know who you are."

I waited for a response but once again it had gone silent. All I could do was stare into its darkness, and when it began to move once more I flinched, but seeing that it was ascending the nights winds I climbed back to my feet.

"Who are you?" I called after it. "Who is it that I am supposed to have harmed?"

"Payment," came the reply. "I will have my payment."


06/06/2006

Midnight had awakened me with a bone shattering, and mind-numbing jolt. From the bottom of me craft I could see the stars above me begin to swirl as my course change from straight and true into a rotating mayhem. I fought my way to my feet, and with great effort to not fall over the side into the now boiling and twisting sands I searched the night for the cause of my new peril. What I saw almost more than my mind could take.

The craft had been caught by a raging whirlpool of sand, and was being drawn toward its center. With no oar or sail I had no control over the course of my travel, and I began to wonder if this was, in fact, the end of the line for me.

As the sand took me deeper into its grip I felt the vessel beneath my feet begin to shudder. I quickly discovered that the stress of the pulling grains was tearing the craft apart. Soon I would be at the mercy of this strange dessert…

"Do you see it know?" Came a now familiar hiss of a voice. "Do you know for what I am collecting?"

I search frantically but I could not find the cloaked figure. It was Its voice I had heard…was it not…or had my mind finally given in to the kaleidoscope of misfortune I had recently faced?

"Do you see?" It rasped again. "Do you see the finality of the thing?"

"Where are you?" I screamed as the craft came apart beneath my feet.

"Know my name," It stated, "and you shall feel my wrath!"

The words echoed in my mind as I was dragged beneath the twisting sand. "Is this the end?" I whispered, half way wishing it to be so.

"No." The reply came. "It is but the beginning."