We made our eyes our enemy, built a world of flashes. Our organs are epileptic now. They say the surface area of the brain is what gifts us higher thinking: sulci and gyri, the folds and creases. We stopped exploring those grooves, stopped unfolding the mysteries of ourselves. It's easy, you know, to become engrossed in someone else's drama than to explore how deeply inadequate you, yourself, are. And I don't blame you. I can hardly look at myself without a curdle in my gut, for all the promises failed to myself. Even of the things I have done: I cannot look at the past, what it has accumulated to, and not feel the heat of embarrassment, the trickle of moisture down a cold spine. But the day comes that we tire of the sickness, tire of living the same trauma by hiding from it, and face how weak we truly are. It wasn't the past self that couldn't manage, they were busy surviving. It's the now self that refuses to acknowledge that today is our last chance. The future cannot change, it can only forgive.

Despite reliving my waking nightmare every night, there was a peace beyond the fear. The crisp air pretended to whisper freshness, and the stars danced a calm melody into our march. We, like most of the pilgrims, believed there was a place to go. The truth of that didn't matter to me. I had to believe in something. It wasn't too reassuring that everyone described it differently, that the thirsty preached of cool waterfalls, the hungry of cornucopia. The broken, they mostly followed. Yet no matter how feeble, everyone had a special wish to cast. I began taking down the wishes on pages between withered leather. Some nights I wished I could draw it, could craft an image for others to hope upon. I tried to, dig for lines in my mind. My imagination fizzled too. Everything was blurry at night.