"Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no to-morrow. To forget time, to forget life, to be at peace." -Oscar Wilde, The Canterville Ghost

June, 1895, La.

Beautiful words, and words that ring so true for me in these dark times. I find myself thinking back to the song that my mother used to sing me to sleep at night. I never, at that tender age, understood what it was about. I never guessed that its subject was a warning, that those words hinted at what would one day become my profession, my calling. My mother's soothing voice spoke of safety, of home, and in that net of comfort spirited me off to the solace of the dream realms. But the words were a warning, portents of my fate. How naive I was.

I am tired. I do not wish to go on. I wish only to rest, but to rest is to die. I look to the cards, and only the tower stares back.

L.

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