(I am a Man, afraid) I am a Man, afraid

(As I plant my feet) As I stand alone before the bridge

(and watch my comrades fade) I watch my comrades fade

(through the grip of embracing mists) into the veil of their concealing gloom

until I am left in their past

(As day gives way to dusk) While the sunlight flickers, and is gone

(I am a Man, apart) I am a Man, resolved

(As I brace myself against this burden) As I stand alone before the bridge

(to guard the way Home) I turn my back on Home

(As life for the lifeless I stand,) and raise my sword in willing hands,

though the sun will never rise for me again

(As I’m cleansed by fire) While the gloaming flickers, and is gone

(I am a Man, resigned) I am a Man, assuaged

(As fear stalks my ragged shadow) As I stand alone before the bridge

(For the gift of hope is only mine to give,) The eons streak into the endless nether,

(though the memory of a mother’s hand) where the touch of loving parents

is a balm to bruised shoulders

(As the earth swallows the fading day) While the torchlight flickers, and is gone

(I am a Man, unbroken) I am a Man, unbowed

(As I square myself to face the rush) As I stand alone before the bridge

(I watch my foemen come) destiny reaches for me with eyes aglitter,

(A forest of spears, piercing the night,) and the silvery edge of its derision

stabs hungrily at my courage

(As the long dark reaches for me) While the twilight flickers, and is gone

(I am a Man, reforged) I am a Man, renewed

(As I raise my shield to take their blows) As I stand alone before the bridge

(I name my foes clearly) I call unto the crowding host

(For I will not fall here, unremembered,) and taunt them with my father’s voice

because I will not cower

(As stars fill the sky) While the gleaming flickers, and is gone

(I am a Man, released) I am a Man, released

(As I sweep my blade across their line) As I stand alone upon the bridge

(I think only of my duty,) and serve faithfully the beauty I’ve squandered,

(and nothing shall fail here but my fears) while my courage beats their breath away

because I am immortal

(As my light pulses toward midnight) Then the starlight flickers, and is gone

There’s a hole in the ground where I used to be,

It clutches and grabs, and it won’t set me free.

Its edges are sharp with the stones that I cast;

Its bottom’s as deep as the mercy I lacked.

The soil beside it is heaped deep and red,

In equal proportion to tears no one shed.

Its mouth is as wide as my hunger for sin;

The air it exudes leaves a damp on the skin.

A throat it conceals, which falls deeper than light,

And jerks at my bones, ’til they’re jerked out of sight.

The fingers I’m missing don’t slow my descent;

A fitting reward for the life I once led.

Too late, now, a voice I don’t have pleads for grace,

As rocks like the rock of my heart take my place.

A lake set to burn with the fuel of my greed

Awaits to exact a fair price for my deeds.

A host of the fallen come crowing my name

As roughly they cuff me in shackles of shame.

A voice like the thunder of nightmares now peals

In lusting reminder of bargains long sealed.

I’m given a last wistful look at my life

To see for myself where my innocence died.

Then down slams the lid on my coffin of guilt

And nails seal me in with the doom that I’ve built.

One day I was King with a crown made of gold

Yet fiends now command me as one that they own.

No longer the master; a slave now I am.

Here lies the forgotten, invisible man.

What makes me happy?

A Wrinkle in Time

a stitch to save nine

her hand in mine

and seasons

Playing games with the boys

my daughter's 'Mom' voice

making way too much noise

and pizza

Putting toes over lines

trading nickels for dimes

gently losing my mind

and freedom

Choosing help over hurt

going late into work

wearing cheesy 'Dad' shirts

and re-runs

Singing songs in the dark

walking barefoot through parks

stealing that woman's heart

and reading

Doing right and not wrong

knowing words to this song

smacking King to be Kong

are reasons

This is what it’s like to go insane.

How do I say it? Not really possible not at all possible because it’s not really real not really real not really real because it’s not possible not possible because it wasn’t possible last night and it wasn’t possible this morning and it’s not possible now but now it seems real and still can’t be possible and I know I have to say it can’t say it have to say it how do I say it?

Crazy crazy crazy. Crazy crazy crazy. Crazy crazy crazy crazy crazy not crazy not crazy very real but can’t be real doesn’t feel real the images don’t fit together. Toast this morning, cold to the touch because I got up late but toast this morning with butter sitting hard on top like a corpse. Like a corpse? How the hell can I say like a corpse? A corpse? Not a corpse, it’s butter, dumbass, and toast but the toast was cold because I didn’t get up with the alarm and there’s a schedule to keep places to go people to see things to do and so it’s all about that cold toast with the dead butter lying flat on top like… like… So it can’t be real, but the cold toast was definitely real this morning it was real, really real like all the little things before have been really real because they sometimes leave a bad taste in the mouth like cold toast washed down with coffee sitting too long in a cup. Bitter bitter bitter bitter way too bitter to wash down something that hard needed something warmer something softer like hair to make it taste better. Like hair? Not hair to wash it down that’s stupid but hair that’s soft to the touch and real, really real like all the little things that connect you to a single moment, a special moment, even if that moment’s happened a bazillion times before because there’s hair right now and the promise of cold toast and coffee tomorrow morning if I wake up late.

Up on time up on time never up on time and she’s always waiting, waiting waiting waiting and what the hell was I waiting for? No harm in waking up late should have gotten up on time what’s the problem with getting up on time I had plenty of sleep last night no dreams but got up late because I’m lazy. Just a fat lazy bastard with no reason to stay asleep but just needed those ten extra minutes just ten extra minutes ‘Just another ten minutes’ like I have all the time in the world to spend breathing into a damn pillow with my fat gut hanging out of my shirt when I could’ve been up I could’ve been should’ve been up and now those ten minutes are gone completely wasted absolutely spent never coming back because I just needed ten more minutes of sleep for no damned reason whatsoever. Dumb dumb dumb stupid dumb lazy fatass needs ten minutes to get up won’t even get up to the smell of hot coffee and warm toast and who knows what else after she was waiting if I’d only dragged my ass out of bed just ten minutes sooner.

Just another morning just another morning it was just another morning and how do they expect me to get through it all the doctors in white coats and nurses looking at me like ‘Why isn’t it you?’ when they should really be asking ‘Why isn’t it you?’ Not the way they’re thinking it but I can’t control that can’t control that lost all control not in control no control it was taken from me the moment they gave that idiot a cell phone and a license to drive and I just needed ten more minutes to wake up wake up wake up oh, please God just wake up.

But still the nurses are looking at me and the doctors shuffle around pretending they know what to do when there’s no way in hell any right-thinking person would have any idea what to do because it’s too much it’s too much it’s all got to be too much if it’s too much for me why isn’t it too much for them? How can I say this I can’t say this they expect me to say this but they shouldn’t be done yet I know they shouldn’t be done yet there’s no way they could be done yet and they all deserve to have their heads cut off for walking away like that chop chop chop chop chop because they’re done too soon and they don’t care like I care like I care with an ache in my marrow they should care more like I do like I do and they don’t. They work and they work but not long enough not nearly long enough and they don’t care like I care and they fling pretend words at each other in a made-up language that only doctors and morons can understand so they can all pretend they have access to some secret store of knowledge the rest of us don’t and all the while they’re just thinking ‘holy shit holy shit holy shit’ because the images aren’t possible not possible but it all seems so possible from a distance, all the blood and the slackness and the bones poking like broken wet sticks through flesh that isn’t perfect but is perfect was made perfect it was perfect and how the hell am I supposed to say this there’s no possible way I can say this because there was cold toast this morning and a slab not a slab not a slab never say the word slab again of butter sitting lifeless and salty on top of a crust that didn’t want it and coffee who the hell decided coffee was good for breakfast that stuff’s way too bitter and the whole freaking world knows it that’s why we need so much crap to make it taste better and that’s the first thing we want to drink in the morning? Taste taste taste I can still taste the blood in my mouth because there’s still blood in my mouth and the nurses are watching me like it’s my turn next and the cut in my mouth is all I’ve got I’m lucky lucky lucky just one lucky little cut in my mouth and the taste of blood and cold toast and coffee and the doctors have already moved on because there’s nothing left to do but the paperwork and the memory of hair on a pillow and the lucky little cut lining my tongue with blood.

Thump. Hair on my hands on her pillow. Thump-thump. Hair over her eyes as I cup her face. Thump-thump, thump, thump. Last night was a moment, wasn’t it? One of those special moments that’s happened a bazillion times before but was special because it’s happened a bazillion times before even though there was nothing special just the touch of her hair and her smile as I kissed her goodnight. Something simple something simple so very common it’s unique to us and our friends laugh at it and strangers smile at it and our kids are embarrassed by it but who gives a damn I’ll kiss her whenever I want to whenever I want to I’ll kiss her and kiss her and kiss her because we want to and to hell with the rest of you. So, so, so simple but we never forget to do it first thing in the morning last thing at night ‘always kiss me goodnight’ it says above our bedroom door, a plaque we bought to remind us to love each other even when we don’t want to love each other and maybe that’s how I can say it? Is that how I can say it?

Just give her a kiss goodnight?

It shouldn’t be real but it is and I don’t know how to say it but it needs to be said and we were just running errands and now it’s done it’s all done and there’s nothing left to do but wait my turn if there’s any mercy in You it’ll be my turn soon and how do I say it? I can’t say it but there’s the proof lying there on the bed and my hand through the hair that’s still so soft but everything else is cold so very cold and all I feel is a terrible heat I can’t purge it won’t purge I’m alone now and there’s nothing left to cool me off I’ve got to say it just say it figure out a way to say it because I’m going to hate myself for the rest of my life if I don’t say it so just freaking say it just swallow no swallow again that lump won’t go away can’t breathe past the lump so swallow again I’m blubbering like a damned schoolgirl I must look ridiculous and now no one’s looking at me at all and I’m really really standing here so just say it.

So now I say it. I say it and stroke the hair and remember this is real because the proof is here and they shouldn’t have stopped working but the proof is here and I can’t ignore it can’t ignore it can’t bear to look at it because all I want to do is look at it and see her for her with that smile and the wagging finger as I finally drag myself into the kitchen and she tells me it’s too late I’m too late and all I get now is cold toast and coffee unless I make something for myself and I haven’t got any idea how to do anything for myself and now I’m going to have to do everything myself everything everything everything and there’s half of me lying stiff as cold butter on a slab because I was too lazy to get up and get it while it’s hot.

“Goodbye, baby.” A whisper not a scream just a hoarse whisper not a scream it’s almost a scream I’m going to scream if I keep standing here keep standing here can’t leave keep standing here and ten minutes is ten minutes is ten minutes is forever now it’s forever I’ll never get those ten minutes back and who knows what might have been after cold toast and coffee. Now give her a kiss just one last kiss and maybe she’ll wake up again there could be a spark in the stories there’s always a spark and maybe this time there’ll be a spark and later some time to heal so it won’t be the last kiss but just another kiss goodnight and there’s no way to say goodnight but maybe this kiss will spark and she’ll wake up again and I can have forever back and where is the spark where is the spark isn’t there supposed to be a spark? If anyone has a spark she’s got a spark and she had a spark there’s always a spark and now there’s no spark so hate myself go ahead hate myself I’ve earned the right to hate myself hate myself hate myself hate myself. Forever.

This is what it’s like to go insane.

‘Nothing to live for?’

This is a false premise.

There is no such thing as ‘nothing to live for;’

There never has been.

There is always something to live for.

The true question is this:

Do you have the guts to go find it?

If your day is empty: fill it.

If you feel alone: make friends.

If you feel incapable: do it.

If you feel stupid: learn it.

If you feel weak: get stronger.

If you feel slow: move faster.

If you feel inadequate: improve yourself.

It’s hard to do

But it’s not impossible.

Because there’s one primary truth you can’t ignore:

Life was already given to you.

Whether you believe in the divine or the temporal

Or even nothing at all:

Life was already given to you.

If you want something more, then go find it.

It might take more courage than you think you’ve got.

It might cause more pain than you think you can handle.

It might push you to places you don’t want to go.

It might even make you hate yourself for your weaknesses.

But here’s the rub:

It’s worth it – if you’ve got the guts.

If you want the life of your dreams, then go get it.

It won’t come to you.

And when you fail –

Because you will fail –

Have the guts to press on.

Your success isn’t guaranteed

But it shouldn’t have to be.

If you think you’ve got ‘nothing to live for’

You’re not looking hard enough.

If you think you’ve got ‘nothing to live for’

You’re not working hard enough.

I am a half-breed, unclaimed by either race.

I was born of a prostitute and her john.

I spent my youth in foster homes and government facilities.

I spent time in jail.

I am not handsome.

I am not tall.

I am not wealthy.

I am not popular.

I served my country with distinction.

I served my country honorably.

I have one eye.

I have only one working hand.

My country said it would take care of me;

My country lied its ass off.

My country believes in things I can’t believe in.

My country believes in things I know to be wrong.

My children think I’m a curmudgeonly old fool.

I’ve grown weak in old age.

I’m often ignored because I am old.

I even ache when I sleep.

None of this matters

Because I have something to live for.

I have something to live for because I found it,

And what I found is mine forever.

It’s mine forever because I had the guts to go look for it.

What I found is mine forever

Because I have the guts to earn it again

Every. Single. Day.

‘Nothing to live for?’

Only if that’s the way you want it.

Live that way if you want to;

I sure as hell won’t.

(I am a Man, afraid) I am a Man, afraid

(As I stand alone) As I stand alone before the bridge

(and watch my comrades fade) I watch my comrades fade

(through the arms of embracing mists) Through the veil of their concealing gloom

(I am now only part of their past)

(As I watch the sun drop toward night) While the sunlight flickers, and is gone

(I am a Man, forlorn) I am a Man, resolved

(As I brace myself against this burden) As I stand alone before the bridge

(to guard the way Home) I turn my back on Home

(I have only myself to damn or cheer) And hoist my shield with trembling limbs

(Because the sun will never rise for me again)

(As I’m cleansed by the dimming fire) While the gloaming flickers, and is gone

(I am a Man, resigned) I am a Man, appeased

(As fear stalks me hungrily) As I stand alone before the bridge

(For the gift of hope is only mine to give) I watch the eons flicker past me

(Though the memory of a mother’s hand) Though the touch of loving parents

(Is a balm to bruised shoulders)

(As the earth swallows the fading day) While the torchlight flickers, and is gone

(I am a Man, unbroken) I am a Man, unbowed

(As I square myself to face the rush) As I stand alone before the bridge

(I watch my foemen come) Destiny reaches for me with eyes aglitter

(Their host of spears, piercing the night) While the silvery edge of its derision

(Stabs hungrily at my courage)

(As the long dark reaches for me) While the twilight flickers, and is gone

(I am a Man, reforged) I am a Man, renewed

(As I raise my shield to take their blows) As I stand alone before the bridge

(I name my foes clearly) I call unto the crowding host

(For I will not fall here, unremembered) And taunt them with my father’s voice

(Because I am immortal)

(As stars fill the sky) While the gleaming flickers, and is gone

(I am a Man, released) I am a Man, released

(As I sweep my blade across their line) As I stand alone upon the bridge

(I think only of my duty) Now I serve only the beauty I’ve squandered

(And nothing shall fail here but my fears) While my courage beats their breath away

(Because I am unencumbered by doubt)

(As my light pulses toward midnight) Then the starlight flickers, and is gone

I am a black Sun, an orb of fiery gloom stripped of its glory by the absence of your light, an imploding disc falling helplessly into the well of emptiness you so carefully prepared for me

I am a negative light, a vulgar pulsar flung deep into the hollows of your terrible shadow and locked away out of sight, far beyond the avid grasp of our dwindling reflections

I am a thing unlooked-for, unwanted and untouched, by you or the thing you plucked from my broken chest and took away with you, to a harsh and brazen sky to which I could not follow

I am a bent thing, crushed tightly around the molten core of whom I used to be, a dim star without the power to sustain itself, a mortal entity tossed into the mists of obscurity and left to die.

This is what you want me to be.

I reached for you that night and cried your name aloud, but I turned to mist and vapor as you floated away, blithely lofting yourself atop a breeze too strong to carry me in your wake

Too late I stretched myself across the blowing winds, for my phantom grip turned to fog as I squeezed your fading hands, and felt only a flicker of your heat warming my fingertips as you faded into the shadows

I wept for us then, as bitterly as I weep for us now, though my tears fall unsoliced as I blend careworn and edgewise into your past, a ghost of futility lacking the power to recall itself from darkness into memory.

And nothing is quenched. Nothing is ever quenched.

This is what you want me to be.

This is what I will not be, for me.

So now I burn, but darkly, and savor the midnight gruel of my ambition: to fill the vaults between us with my fires, from rim to sparkling rim, and count the epochs as they flit singly past

For the part of me you sought to kill lives on, and my particles still stretch and flux and flow through Time, though grimly do I stalk along my shadowed path, breathing once for each careful step I take, flaring toward fulfillment

And my absent heart beats on, ever on, though even I can’t feel it, and one day – maybe someday soon – you’ll feel the unabided sweep of my caress; then you’ll understand, and return to me what once was mine.

This is what I want to be.

This is not what you wanted me to be.

You are a penumbra of pain, an hazy aura crafted with a liar’s skill, feigning the growth of life in barren places, yet in truth nothing more than an imitation of brilliance, set to dazzle and not sustain

You are more shadow than light, a reckless disc of misery capering madly on the whims of celestial currents you don’t understand, an unwitting exile from your own legacy and lost to your own homecoming

You are a gleam of false hope, a flawed lens glaring balefully across white-capped seas, scattering the bones of loved ones across your rocky shores until naught remains but the broken hulks of the ships that came to find you

You are a superficial Sun, an orb of fiery gloom tormented by the shadows it has created with its faulty light, a hollow sphere of fiery temper, ever flaring but never growing, and cast in the image of something better

This is not what I want you to be.

This is what you made yourself to be, for me.

Eric knows this: there’s beauty in the rhythm of life.

It’s hot this morning, as it should be, for summer has come once again to the benches of this high mountain desert. With the summer comes heat, wailing like a malignant child throwing a monstrous fit as it races to catch up with the steaming back of its ancient mother. The hills flinch at the child’s livid caress, rippling in loathing as the sun climbs higher and higher into a pale and remorseless sky.

Eric is here, too, in the heat, climbing through the dense brush that covers the slanting brows of Old Indian Mountain like the tattered and uneven fragments of a coarse and mouldering blanket. The rocks clutch at him as he scrambles across the Old Indian’s talus. Their edges scrape at his tough denim jeans like the failing grip of a dying man trying to get his attention. They can’t. The rocks matter to him, but not enough for him to notice them where they lie. They’re important to him, but not as individuals. Individually they’re nothing. They’re important, but as a collective, as a community familiar with the echoes and purpose of silence. Eric loves the stones, but only as a collective, just as he loves and shares their purpose.

Eric sometimes makes use of that purpose. Eric believes in the necessity of purpose. He believes in the power of purpose.

Eric is like the stones; he sees this relationship, understands his connection to the crumbling hills on a level impossible to explain to those who have never heard the song calling him into the wilderness. Individually, Eric is nothing; individually, they’re nothing, the objects of his purpose. It’s only the collective that matters.

The song.

It’s a hymn of heat and sweat that he follows. It’s a melody of cleansing, an anthem of order to quell the twisting zephyrs of chaos. It’s well-known that heat is a purifier; it’s verifiable that flame is an antiseptic.

Eric listened when the rhythms of this song crept through the open windows of his conscience again. He’s heard this song before, this lovely tune wrapped in the anguish between light and the night; had heard it, and answered. Lately, he’s felt its irresistible tug of urgency on his toes beneath his blankets as he slept, urging him to wakefulness. Urging him to action. So, Eric arose and walked out into the night, drawn into the dormant world by the mutterings of his own, smoky sirens. Eric came here, to this place of hymns and heat and crumbling hills, and left all doubt behind him as he walked. He walked, with joy rising in his chest like a private sun over a landscape only he could see. He walked out into midnight pastures lit only by the staring pale of an astonished moon, and brought nothing with him other than his tools. He left everything else behind.

Everything else.

Eric is nothing if not obedient.

Even to himself, Eric acknowledges this. He’s always careful to acknowledge this, and would tell others if they seemed interested, if they inquired after the causes behind his curious smile-not-smile. But they’re never interested, neither in Eric nor in his curious nature. At least, they’re not interested until he has their undivided attention. By then, Eric no longer feels the need to explain anything to them.

In time, they’ll learn everything Eric was waiting to tell them if they asked. They’ll learn the things Eric has learned. Sadly, they’ll be forced to learn these things the hard way. And they will, given time. Given time, they’ll learn everything Eric has to teach them, and Eric will give them all the time they need.

It will be a lesson they never forget.

Behind Eric there’s only emptiness: an empty bed in an empty room of an empty house. It’s a well of emptiness long since drained of… everything… until only Eric remained to live in the heart of its emptiness; the lone inhabitant of an otherwise empty husk. The empty husk was not always empty, and was not always his to inhabit. Yet now it belongs to him, in whole and in part, and he stalks its unlit hallways without socks and without harm, a mobile heart pumping life through the shriveled veins of a torpid host. He feels the carpet well and spring beneath the hammers of his feet, between the bones of his grasping toes. He sinks his talons deep into the husk’s lifeless nape and squeezes it, testing the husk’s crumpled enclosures for signs of life, in search of its living marrow. Endlessly Eric searches, reading the answer in the vibration of his soles: the husk is dead, or would be if Eric would just leave it alone. Let it die.

Eric loves truth, and the truth is this: the husk’s only functioning organ is Eric’s own heart, beating serenely in the darkness. Eric embraces the darkness, cherishes it as a child born from an angel of his better nature.

Darkness is the perfect counterpoint to the heat’s chanting rhythms.

But darkness doesn’t bring comfort; it only brings darkness. The darkness isn’t comfortable, it’s just that Eric is comfortable in the dark. Eric looks forward to the day he can return to the empty embrace of his unlit, sunlit husk, and settle deep into its bosom again. There he will take root once more, heart pulsing, and live as only one familiar with emptiness and heat can live. But not now. Not today. Not until his purpose is achieved. Not until he’s accomplished what he’s been called here to accomplish.

Eric is nothing if not faithful; He’s loyal to his sirens.

So, Eric is here now, toiling and heaving and inhaling the chalky detritus disturbed by his awkward, upward lungings. Although it’s early, the sun stares down on his efforts, driving the nail of her will into the center of his spine in imitation of the spear that pierced the flank of the Paragon. Eric’s shirt darkens with sweat around his neckline, beneath his arms, down the center of his back as he huffs and jerks his way through the stern glare of early morning. Yet even in the sunlight his eyes are in shadow. His jaw is a cliff beneath which no celestial body can penetrate. Eric tightens his grip on the satchel trapped in the sun-browned vise of his left hand, strangling it. He strangles it, and climbs.

To where he knows not: Eric knows only that he will know he has found his destination once he’s found it, and not before.

There are trails near at hand for him to use if he wants them, but he refuses. They’re clearly marked: ‘For Public Use as Designated by the Department of Recreation,’ scribed in letters the color of stiff blood on over-used white bandages. These trails make hiking easy for the weak-limbed or lazy. Eric is neither. Besides, Eric has come here with a purpose, carving a path few others would care to follow, and these trails are an affront to him. Eric is here on business: what he does now he does not do for fun; this is not recreation. Only a madman would think it so. Also, these trails are an abomination to his sensibilities: they’re vicious and ugly. They’re scars hacked into the side of the Old Indian’s face with unthinking hands and heavy machinery. There’s no art to this scarring, no subtlety to its achievement. There’s only a wicked cross-section of dirty ribbons left behind by men without eyes to see the beauty they so carefully, carelessly maim.

The heat rises; Eric rises with it, knifing his own trail through the dry scrub and thorns that carpet the Old Indian’s face. Below Eric, the world is a pale thing and flat, pinned to its own crust and already quivering in the heat. The sun doesn’t understand mercy, and today there are no clouds to comfort the earth after another lean and thirsty night.

Instead, there’s only heat, and the promise of more heat in the afternoon: a heat to melt the heart of God’s furnace; a heat that is a thing alive in itself. Alive, and implacable: a living thing without conscience and without remorse, and ambivalent to its own cruelty. But the heat isn’t evil: it’s cruel simply because it was made to be cruel. Its purpose is cruelty; it accomplishes this purpose by scorching mortal things too weak to defend themselves from its persistent hunger. No, the heat isn’t wicked. It simply does what it was made to do: to feed and to feed and to endlessly feed on the things caught in the glare of its bloodlust.

This is the First Law: all living things must eat. Eric loves laws and obeys them all, save one.

Then, Eric finds it: a small clearing tucked neatly into the hindward fold of a slanting ridge, surrounded by a feeble stand of trembling spruce. A sudden, westerly wind brushes the top layer of dust from the rocks just as the sun finally scrambles clear of the peaks behind him. Eric squints into the breeze, shading his eyes with a hand toughened by constant labor, and smiles. To the west, the horizon’s lip is a dark bruise stretching across the face of the earth. Eric nods; his smile deepens. The summer wind, as thin and skittish as a starveling kitten, rasps him with its tongue. The kitten’s caress lingers unexpectedly on his cheeks; for a single heart’s beat it cools his sun-ravaged skin.

Eric’s eyes dance like the twin cores of a midnight sun as he takes in the view. Eric drops his satchel with a contented groan, stretching his back as he takes another satisfied look around. Humming along to a tune only he can hear, Eric opens his satchel. He’s ready to work, and he’s got to get to it.

He has plenty of time.

Now it’s time to dig, so Eric digs. Diligently, urgently he digs, despite the weight of the flexing sun. Up and down flashes the dull metal of Eric’s pick, a hard tool of Man he’s forced to wield to satisfy his duty. The hard spike of his purpose drives deep into the rocky soil even as the sun floats toward noon, dragging the millstone of its heat behind it. The earth steams as the day waxes: it steams and it screams and it thrashes, until even the shadows flee to the shelter of the scarred underbrush to escape the sun’s notice.

The heat is suffocating. Because he is sometimes weak, Eric removes his sweaty shirt and folds it neatly, setting it aside on a large block of granite shaped like an malformed altar beneath a crooked spruce and gets back to work. Sweat glistens on his skin, pools itself in the valleys on his body. His skeleton is fetching in its exertions: the bars of his frame are brilliant and glistening as the sun crawls to its apex. The dust dances in tiny whirls around the edge of his blade as he toils, carving a hole in the mountainside deep enough to tap into the Old Indian’s memories, driving the nail of his purpose deeper and deeper and wider into the Old Indian’s temple.

While Eric works, the wind tempts him. It promises him relief from misery if only he would drop his tools and rest. This is a lie, and Eric knows it. He’s merely suffering; He isn’t miserable. Suffering is God’s tool, a means to teach His children how better to understand joy; how better to serve one another; how better to understand compassion. Misery is an invention of Man: a means to deceive him into ignoring joy, the necessity of service. Misery is a tool forged by hands caught up in the tempest of their own self-loathing. Misery is the handmaiden of doubt, the trembling bride of uncertainty: too frightened to flee but unwilling to fight for the preservation of its innocence.

Eric knows nothing of doubt or uncertainty. The sirens sing a better tune.

Eric ignores the temptations of the westering wind and wields his pick instead, chewing relentlessly at the crumbling soil too old and too astonished to move away. Thirst rises in Eric’s mouth like a river gone irretrievably dry as he works, but that doesn’t matter. Thirst is only thirst until it kills. Until then, thirst is only suffering, and Eric is familiar with suffering. He’s comfortable with it. He can work through it.

Up goes the pick; down slams the nail. Up goes the pick; down slams the nail. Up goes the pick; down slams the nail.

The muscles in Eric’s back and shoulders flex in the heat, bunching and stretching beneath the canopy of his flesh like hidden wings longing to break free. They’re a joy to Eric. He revels in their power as he reshapes the land to suit his needs.

Up goes the pick; down slams the nail; up goes the pick; down slams the nail; up goes the pick; down slams the nail. Again and again and again until even the sun grows weary of the spectacle and abdicates the heavens, trailing dusk in its wake like a molten squid showering the earth with its ink.

But the waning of daylight doesn’t bring an end to effort, and Eric is relentless.

It will rain tonight.

It’s evening now, but still it’s hot, for the sun has done its work well. Below him, the valley shimmers like a lover lost behind translucent veils, the plainness of her features distorted by the gossamer gatherings of a rising humidity. On a rock near his alcove Eric waits, a patient ambassador sent from the foundations of the day’s staggering heat. His preparations are finished, but his work isn’t done. While he waits, the breeze freshens in tantalizing gusts. Tiny devils whirl and flirt and caper near his folded legs, touching him gently. They swish and sway their dusty skirts about his ready limbs in heady circles, exciting his imagination.

But Eric is no fool: there’s more here than meets the eye. These tiny devils are messengers unfaithful to any cause but their own. They’re temptresses, heralds of misdirection. Deceitful. Eric sees their dance for the falsehood it implies, and remembers: comfort cannot be found in the cool of the dark. Yet this deceit must be endured, for there’s no victory without opposition, no glory without trial. Eric knows this. His purity must be tested in the cauldron of obedience, and warmed by the flames of true diligence until it comes to a rising boil, seething with virtue.

Only then will Eric be permitted to drink of it. Only then will Eric be permitted to share it with others.

So, Eric waits. He waits for the zephyrs to tempt him, to sing songs of fruitless whimsy to his ready ears. Their breath tickles the hairs on the back of his neck. He gives them their chance, offers himself up fully and without blemish. He’s willing to heed their calls should they prove stronger than the sirens of his husk. He listens to the devils, breaths their dusty scent through nostrils familiar with empty spaces, and waits.

He waits for them to fail, for they have always failed, and never once has Eric turned aside.

Therefore Eric waits, sitting loose-limbed atop a rock near his alcove. He waits as the light fades, dripping away from the western horizon like blood from a stiffening corpse until darkness comes. Overhead, stars multiply across a sky the color of a vast and throbbing sea. Their light pierces the deepening oceans, swirl across the velveteen carapace like the palsied stabbings of an half-mad seamstress working by candlelight. The zephyrs are emboldened by the onrushing night: they lick continuously at the sweat on Eric’s flesh, tugging the oxygen free from his cooling tissues, enticing him. His skin comes alive to the possibilities of temptation.

Eric’s smile deepens. They’re too late. The devils have missed their chance.

There’s a town down there, over which Eric floats in the dark like an owl over field mice. It’s an habitation of people too numerous to be few yet too many to be discounted. They’re an industrious folk, prosperous in the way only the insignificant can appreciate, and desperate to be something grander. They’re humble, as are their means, as is their town, and proud of their daily labors. Of their labors they’re very proud, and this pride has bred in them a coarseness which has nothing to do with the desert grit they sweep away from their lintels in the sunlight.

It’s this pride which first caught Eric’s attention. It’s this pride of which his sirens sing.

Despite himself, Eric quivers in anticipation, but he doesn’t move. Time stretches itself like the heaving inhalation of the lungs before a scream, and still Eric waits.

The night chews on the light surrounding Eric’s covert, consuming it utterly.

The earth’s lungs thicken.

A sudden gust rattles the cowering spruces. Eric’s eyes flash in the darkness like stars exploding at midnight in an empty sky. He rises to his feet and retrieves his satchel. This smile he cannot control slices a gorge across the front of his skull. The earth’s scream is silenced before it even starts. There will be no warning.

There’s never a warning.

Eric’s footing is sure in the darkness as he slips down the side of the Old Indian’s head, moving quickly, wrapped in the comforting shroud of the enveloping night. He has a long walk ahead of him, but Eric has always enjoyed walking.

Tonight there’s a breeze, unexpected and welcome and westerly, breathing life into the town held awkwardly in the wrinkled arms of Old Indian Mountain. Old and young, hale and ill, mad and sane, this evening they have all turned their heads to the West with shining eyes and breathed deeply and long of this accidental blessing. The desert inhabitants stayed indoors whilst the sun glared at the earth, forsaking the world and their responsibility for it. Now, in the airy blusterings they’ve returned to the streets. They’re simply delighted to see one another. They greet the other survivors with shimmering eyes, pleased to see their companions alive and abroad and fit to fight another day.

Eric is also here, disguised. He’s just another survivor in their sun-flogged ranks. He’s clean now and close-shaven, wreathed in an aura of fresh soap and dedicated scrubbing. Quietly he walks the streets with them, gliding past, sometimes even passing through them as they bundle together in pleasant knots on the sidewalks. Eric nods politely as he passes each stranger. They nod politely in return, because Eric is ordinary. He isn’t dangerous, or unusual: he’s simply a man in a short-sleeved, white dress shirt who chooses to wear khaki slacks and a tie after business hours. A skinny tie, which brings an air of tidy sensibility to this man they don’t know. The people smile at Eric; Eric smiles back.

Clearly he’s not dangerous: they just don’t know him.

They don’t even see the satchel in Eric’s hand.

The moon crawls over a notch in the side of the Old Indian’s shoulder. The mountain’s grieving shadow stretches out to brush him, stroking his cheeks with trembling fingers meant to be tender. It’s the touch of a supplicant. Eric stares up at the granite face hidden by shadows, acknowledging the Old Indian’s sorrow. The earth isn’t to blame for its misunderstanding; it simply doesn’t know any better.

Eric knows it will be soon.

There’s a blast of hot laughter on his cheek. Eric turns to face it. Blue eyes, brown hair, white blouse… white blouse! The smell of liquor and cigarettes swamps the smell of the street, waters his eyes. “Whatcher name, honey?”

Eric smiles kindly through his tears at the harlot leering crudely and snapping her hips at him. “Eric,” he answers.

“Eric. I like that,” the harlot says, chewing gum and smiling suggestively at him. “Good strong name for a man. You looking for somebody?”

“Yes.” Eric’s smile is bound to his face like an unwitting sacrifice on a bloodstained altar.

The harlot’s wrinkled lips pull hard on an half-dead cigarette. “My name’s Shirleen, since you bothered to ask,” she adds, turning her head and blowing a long plume of smoke into the gathering wind.

“Hello, Shirleen,” says smiling Eric. “I’m very glad to meet you.”

Another gust of whisky laughter. “You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve heard that one, before,” the harlot giggles. Her painted eyes flash in the streetlight.

Eric smiles. He doubts that very much.

“Well, since you ain’t gonna talk a lot, why dontcha buy me a drink or two,” the harlot says, nodding her head toward a weary looking bar across the street. “Maybe we’ll find who you’re looking for in there.”

Eric’s smile deepens, and he nods. Thy will be done.

“I’m always willing to make a new friend, especially one that’s willing to stand me a couple rounds, know what I mean?” she asks Eric, tucking her arm into his as they cross the street.

Eric nods again. “I know exactly what you mean,” he answers as they step through the tavern’s neon-darkened doorway.

“What’s that?” she asks as they walk inside, pointing at his satchel.

“Tools,” Eric replies.

“What do you do?” she asks.

“I’m a carpenter,” Eric answers and smiles, because sometimes he is. Tonight, he will be.

The wind blows stronger as they take a seat at the bar, rattling the windows.

Time passes; Shirleen drinks. Eric waits patiently, listening to every word she says. Eric is nothing if not a good listener, and Shirleen has a lot to say.

In the morning, a mist will arise in answer to the breeze, crafted from cooler winds heavy with memories of the Flood. It will be here, this mist, and the nape of the Earth will lie covered beneath it: a wispy vapor hugging the ground, molding itself to the ragged landscape. Softly will it swallow up the shivering land, draping it in a hazy gauze like the knowledgeable hands of an unfamiliar healer. Gently will it flow into the gulping mouths of the canyons, snaking inward and downward like a sweet glass of cool lemonade hitting the back of a parched and jumping throat.

Eric will be here, too, just before sunrise, in that twilight mix of mist and moonlight. He will be here because he was called to be here. The harlot will be with him. Together they’ll drink in the pearly atmosphere and revel in the smoldering glow of another beautiful day. And all will be right with the world, for Eric knows this: he’s a citizen of the Earth, and it belongs to him, all of it. It’s all for him, if only he has the courage to answer for its failings. But he must care for it, too, because he alone has been given the eyes to see what must be seen, and He’s responsible for the earth’s outcome.

Just now, though, the night has waxed to coolness and the heat has crept away to recover its strength in the secret places of its birth. Eric sits calmly on a bench outside the bar just as the first, fat raindrops of a soft summer rain begin falling. Calmly he sits, and quietly, listening to the raving harlot drunkenly justify herself against her own choices.

“We should go inside, get these wet clothes off, “ she exhales after a while. She favors him with a wink and leans in, brushing his forearms with her fingertips. Eric glances over her left shoulder, looking into the gleaming darkness beyond, and smiles.

Tonight, the mountains reach up; the heavens reach down. In between, there’s the desert, and the broken soils of Old Indian Mountain are ready. Given time, the mountains will echo in harmony with the smoky sirens of Eric’s darkness. Given time, the harlot will understand what she needs to understand.

Eric is patient. He will give her all the time she needs.

Shadows drape in mimicry of the hollows in my frame

Each specter host to countless faults I’m far too weak to tame

My limbs are bound to theirs on ground I dare not stoop to touch

The flesh of my reflection now the earth itself corrupts

These ghosts of mine wax gamboling under the waning light

Their faceless countenances stretched unseemly with delight

Denuded of resistance they flow gleefully ahead

In smooth unscripted mockery of my advancing dread

Persistent susurrations tempt the skin behind my ears

Insisting I should yield to them control of all my fears

The wasteland of all yearnings yawns before me bright and black

As helplessly I slide between the banks of Charon’s track

A midnight ride in darkness borne and toward some darkling end

An ebon course no angel dares and devils run instead

Baptized in liquid uselessness, a consecrate by pain

I’ll lift my will above my bones to find myself again.