My sleep deprivation made
everything substantial a little less so. The chaotic talking and moving settled
down as people left my vicinity in a surrealistic way. I sat down as soon as I
could allow myself to. I closed my eyes and went to an uninvited war.....again.
I know what's coming. Brace.
I know It's coming. Brace.
The ground shakes. The
presence of my foe is dense. The density grinds inside of me trying to break
out through my temples. I remember all of this.
The shaking stops, but the
density has only grown stronger; it feels as if my head is imploding. I look before
me and see a crater. It's at the center. Its breath alone would scourge a countryside
and blacken beating hearts. Its hands are like that of vultures, but black.
Everything black. Its massive torso heaves as its lungs inhale air and exhale
a thick red oblivion. It smells as if thousands upon thousand of caskets have
been dug up and opened at once. Its eyes seem nonexistent, yet it knows and
sees everything around it. There are two horns, or thousands of horns, it does
not matter for they seem to grow where they wish, pushing outward.
The massive body turns
toward myself. It does not hesitate, It does not contemplate. Just raises its
great sword toward me and swings.
How many times have I
broadened my feet, thrown back my arms, and run towards it? The sword has torn
me thousands of times. It has ripped through my shoulders and pierced my
innermost being. And I am here again, my body renewed from it's wounds, but
once again threatened to be torn apart.
Watching as the sword
approaches me.
"I will change this. I
cannot win this fight. I surrender."
The sword does not pierce
me and my being is not torn. It's no longer there. Reality sets in. All that I can see is a pierced side
with water and blood flowing from it.
"We
never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight
it: and Christ, because he was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is
also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means--the
only complete realist."
