Hello, my name is Mary Wallace. I have posted the letters below on behalf of a former client who left them in my keeping. He passed away in July 2022.
*
I remember the final time I heard her voice. My wife. We were face to face a few paces from the door, eyes locked, hands grasping others shoulders.
“Don’t look away.” my voice repeating, over and over as we took another step. “I love you.” I told her that, I know I did.
Then I caught her eyes flicker over my shoulder. Felt that ice sharp chill flash up my spine. Saw the tears glisten on her skin as she whispered her last words.
“It’s behind you.”
*
Should be a simple thing to tell the truth, don’t you think? Should be. Yet here I am, years too late for it to matter, and this will be the first time I do. Was easier to lie about what happened, you understand?
I’ve heard it said that the truth is often ugly but lies can be as pretty as you like. Well, my lies sure weren’t pretty but they were still better than the truth. Not that they helped me any.
I’m on death row in this penitentiary and have been for 8 years. As I write this I’ll be executed in 6 weeks time, not long at all. And now, at the end, I have a story I need to tell.
You may wonder why I’m doing this, wonder who this is even for? Who will read these words? I’ll be a dead man before anyone ever does. Well, when I’m finished I’ll leave these letters for Mary, the law student who was assigned to my appeal till I made her quit. I’ve asked her to post them online for me, somewhere for true stories. Better than just being forgotten pages in a drawer somewhere, a paper ghost, last words of a man long gone. So be it.
Now, before I begin, a confession. Very little of what happens in here is about justice. It’s one of the reasons for sure but it ain’t high on the list. Anger, revenge, regret, hate, power, money. Lot of people just want to see a man die, whether you’re willing to believe that or not. Innocent men and women been executed here and more will be, murdered by a system that ought to protect them. But as for me? Well, I’m as guilty as they come, no doubt. And I deserve to die.
*
On my 10th birthday my father took me fishing for the weekend. The last night there we made a campfire beside the lake, just the two of us watching the stars come out. Easy to picture him as he was back then, old clothes and scruffy beard, beer in hand. He grew strangely serious as the night wore on, talking less and less until we were both sat in silence. I’d started to worry when he finally spoke.
“I didn’t just bring you up here for fishing, Danny.” he said. “I brought you here to tell you something important, now that you are old enough. If I’m honest, still not sure the right way to do it though.”
“Did I do something wrong?”
“No, no not at all. You haven’t done anything wrong. Shit. Guess I’ll tell it the same way your grandfather did. I’ve got a story for you.”
He took another sip of his can and lit a cigarette as he began. I remember the tip flaring bright in the dusk, smoke twisting up toward the sky.
“In the early 1800s, on the other side of the world, an old man lived alone in a cottage on the coast. His children, 2 boys, had long since left for their own lives on the mainland. His wife had passed away and he would never take another. Now, each morning this man would walk the beaches near his home to see what had been washed up. And this is how he found the coffin. Wedged in the rocks after a storm, only a mile from his home. At least, that’s what he told his sons. The coffin was wooden, 7 feet by 3, wrapped in bands of corroded metal. The boards were rotten and many were broken which allowed him to see a second container inside, identical to the first only smaller.
We don’t know the details of what followed. How he got it home or what he done with it afterwards. But we know that he opened it. We know he was the first to lay eyes on the bodies inside. Two skeletons, wrapped together, face to face. They were only bones by then so no idea how old they really were. The old man wrote down descriptions of what he found and copies of writing he discovered carved inside.
Then, the following winter, he went out on a fishing boat with 3 other men. They were all experienced sailors and the weather was fine yet not one of them returned. Their boat was found weeks later, run aground, what little remained of their bodies being eaten by the birds.
The two brothers inherited their fathers home and when they returned to it they read his notes and diaries. We don’t know exactly what was written in them but there was certainly some clue, some information that helped them discover the truth. Their father had been cursed and passed it onto them. You know what a curse is? Good, that saves some explaining.
Now, when it came for them the next year, the same date it had for their father the year before, only the eldest survived. He fled away to the nearest city, then the next year further again and kept going. Ended up starting a new family of his own a thousand miles away. He was the man who wrote down the rules for the first time, passing on what he knew of the curse to his descendants.”
My dad paused to stub out his cigarette which had burned away unsmoked in his hand. I can only imagine what I must have looked like sat there before him. Equal parts confused and afraid, wondering why he would treat a campfire story so seriously.
“The curse comes for the eldest man in the family once a year, on December 21st or 22nd. There is only one way to be safe. You must remain in another man or womans sight until the sun rises. You must be watched, seen at all times, or it will take you. Anyone not under anothers gaze is lost. Many things have been tried over the years to get around or away from this fact but nothing ever worked.
One who inherited this tried locking himself up, alone for the night in a single room, doors and windows barred. He gave his son the keys to come and release him in the morning. Next day the boy found his father dead and signs of a desperate attempt to escape.
Another gathered a group of 5 friends, armed them all with rifles and travelled up into the mountains. Not one of them were seen or heard from again.
Nowadays, the one who carries the curse spends those nights with his brothers in an isolated cabin. They watch each other for those dark hours, fulfilling the promise they all made to their father to do so.
Now Danny, as I’m sure you’ve guessed, the family in this story is our family. And those last three men are myself and your uncles.”
I can’t recall my exact words or reaction but I know I didn’t believe it. Was it a joke? Some elaborate prank? It didn’t feel like one. I had never seen my father as serious. There was a heavy melancholy about him, a nervousness in his speech I had never heard before.
“When your grandfather died the curse passed to me.” he went on, “Your uncles have no children and have sworn they never will, so when myself and my brothers are gone, it will pass to you. They don’t know I’m telling you now, Danny. They don’t believe you’re ready but I know otherwise.”
I think back on my uncles, showering me with love, gifts and attention. Didn’t see it for what it was when I was a boy, their longing for something they could never have. Obvious now.
“Always keep this secret.” he said, “It’s not the kind of thing people can easily believe. They’re more likely to think you crazy. Don’t even tell your mother. If she knew the truth she would want to be there and I can’t risk her being hurt.”
Looking back I think he expected me to say something but I was too confused to say a word. He thought I was ready but I wasn’t. Not even close.
“I know this is a lot, Danny. But you need to be ready when the time comes. I’m telling you because you’re growing up, becoming a man. And fathers and sons don’t always get along. So I need you to know about this now. Know it and believe it, in case we ever grow apart.”
“We won’t fall out dad.” I finally found my voice, though it cracked as I spoke.
He smiled at me, reached out and squeezed my shoulder. I recall thinking how terribly sad he looked, how much older than before he told me this. Here and now it’s easy for me to say he did it wrong. But it wouldn’t be fair. You can never really know anothers mind, the truth of why they do what they do. He did the best he could, I believe that.
But if you have nothing to give your children you end up taking from them. Always found that about the saddest truth there is.
*
The heat in this place is quite a thing. No aircon, not for the likes of us. Wouldn’t be right to spend good peoples tax dollars on a luxury like that now, would it? There’s a toilet, bed, sink and fold out table that don’t fold out because the hinge is broke. Then me of course, lying sweating on the floor. Goddamn window isn’t even glass, just a square of opaque plastic to give a little light. Might not be moral but it sure is legal. I know, I checked.
A passing guard taps the steel door and looks in every 30 minutes, 24 hours a day. When he opens that grate I get a glance of the rest of the block. There are dozens of other cells just like mine, though it is a rare thing for me to see another inmate. Hear them sure, the occasional shouts or words through walls. But I will never meet any of them. Death row is also solitary confinement in all but name.
Only inmate I’ve spoken to in my years here was Eddie Milton. He was in the cell on my left my first year. We talked a little on and off until his date got close. About a month out from it he stopped answering me or anyone else for that matter. Retreated into himself and just mumbled nonstop from the moment he woke till the moment he slept, like there was something he was trying to get out but he couldn’t find the words. Man was losing his mind 10 feet from me and there was nothing I could do for him. I’d hear him in the middle of the night, always the same words. “Time” he’d be saying, over and over, “time time time”. Hours on end until he’d started banging his head against the wall or hands on the floor. Only got louder as the days counted down. “It’s burning me.” I heard him say one night, voice rising and falling in the dark like a man talking in a dream. “Time.” I tried to imagine what he was going through, tried to imagine how I would deal with it when it came. “On fire, all of us, all the time.” he hissed the words and as those days counted down it would grow to a cry. “The world is burning. The world is ending.”
I recall a guard coming to shut him up, rattling the door and shouting “Enough Eddie, quiet it down. World ain’t ending.”
“Is to me.” he replied. No-one knew what to say to that.
Some inmates even volunteer for an early death, you know that? Average time in here before execution is 20 years. Alone with your thoughts for so long, alone with all you have or haven’t done. It burns, alright. Maybe Eddie had a point after all.
Another check goes past, 30 mins already and I’ve only written a few lines. Little slices of time until there is nothing left, until you can’t cut it any finer. I try to think about something else, anything else, but it always slides back to those things I want to escape. My wife. Her voice, smile, touch.
Stop.
It’s harder than you might think, with so little else to occupy you. There is only an hour each day for exercise, shower or even visiting.
My mom used to come see me before she passed, though I begged her not to. I had hurt that woman so much I could hardly bear to sit in front of her. She tried so hard to get me to take those appeals, just couldn’t believe I had done those things, no matter the evidence. No matter what I told her.
She’d put on her nice clothes and drive 2 hours each way to come see me whenever she could, even though she was too old to be driving. I remember the last time.
“It’s not right,” she’d said, “Can’t ever make me think otherwise. Something happened I know it, something you aren’t telling.” Her voice getting louder as it always did, rising until it broke in a flood of tears and she had to be helped away. “You’re my boy. You’re still my boy and I could always tell when you was hiding something. I could always tell even when you was little.”
She don’t deserve this, I kept thinking, I wish she would stop, for her own sake as well as mine. She had made a scene so many times I could tell it was close.
“You were my baby,” she said suddenly quiet, reaching out till her fingers stopped against the glass. “I was supposed to protect you, no matter what age you were. Now they are gonna take you away from me, they are gonna take you and there’s nothing I can do …”
God I wish I could have been the man she saw but I never was. She still loved me, I knew it, couldn’t help herself. I wish I could have stopped hurting her. I wish I could have made her understand she never done anything wrong.
“Please mom, don’t do this. Go home.”
“I’m sorry,” she was wiping tears away as she spoke, “I’m sorry. I’ll stop. Please. Please don’t make me go please.”
Maybe a lot of the ones here deserve death, not just me. I can believe that. But my mother didn’t deserve to lose her son. The inmates wives and brothers and sisters and parents and children, they don’t deserve to lose someone too do they? So much pain and it’s always growing. We call it justice but it’s fuel on a flame.
That night I thought of her driving on those long dusty roads, then sitting alone at home. She had lost everyone and there was nothing I could do. She told me once she had shouted on my father before realizing he hadn’t lived there for near 20 years.
When I next called her there was no answer. She had a stroke a day later and died in that empty home. It didn’t have to happen, you know that? If I hadn’t been in here she would still be alive. I could have saved her. But here I am, until I die.
Time is a fire and here we burn.
*
My parents divorced when I was 12. My father had become a drunk, no nicer way to say it. Started drinking as soon as he was awake and didn’t stop. He was never violent to me or my mom but it always felt close, the threat of it, like it was on the edge of happening. I wasn’t there when she asked him to leave, just came home and found him gone like he’d only been visiting all this time. We hardly spoke by that point anyways, exactly as he had feared.
I went through high school without him. Got a call maybe once a month. I began to see him less as my dad and more as just a crazy old man, ruining his life and trying to take us down with him.
When I was 16 he took me for a birthday meal a week late. It was clear he was actually sober for once and struggling mightily with it, pale and staring for that extra moment at every passing glass. His hands shook when he tried to light a cigarette. Still, I watched him like a hawk and he never touched a drop. Not even a nip from that hipflask he thought I didn’t know about.
After dinner he drove me home and parked outside me and moms place. That’s when he tried to talk to me again about the curse. I lost my temper with him, I am ashamed to say, all the feelings of the last few years boiling over. For a couple of hours it had seemed like he had turned a page and now this. I couldn’t take his craziness in my life anymore.
“Please Danny,” he tried to put a hand on my shoulder but I pulled away, “I didn’t tell you everything. I need you to know the rest, how it works…”
I remember pushing open the door and running to the house, so angry I was near crying. When I got inside and my mom asked what was wrong I said he’d been drinking again. An easy lie I knew she’d believe. I heard her speak to him on the phone that night, accuse him of it and tell him not to come back. He didn’t even argue which wasn’t like him. Just went quiet.
I’m not proud of what I done. The reasons I have are no more than excuses, that’s the reality of it. That hurt in his eyes when I looked back is a wound that won’t ever heal.
*
I keep waking in the night and it feels as if someone was just there, beside me. I fight for breath, pain in my chest and wonder if it will end then and there. I can’t stop thinking about her. My wife.
Is it her ghost that wakes me? Of all the things I’ve lost it’s her memory I cling to most. Every day and every detail, every little thing that means nothing at all until it’s gone. I picture us together until I have to hurt myself to stop. Find myself talking to her as if she were there. I hold what remains so close it breaks us both.
I remember asking her to marry me. I planned to do it on the beach at sunset but the rain came on so hard we had to run for the car. I couldn’t wait, soaking wet and laughing in the back seat I asked her anyway and she said yes. I love this moment like no other. Yet if I could go back and do it again I wouldn’t. I would tell her to leave me and never come back. I would keep her safe like I should have.
*
I met the woman I would marry when I was 26 years old. I realize I haven’t described her in these pages, have hardly written about her at all. In truth, I am struggling with the thought of sharing her, sharing my memories of her with whoever may read this. Retelling those moments that were ours alone. Does it cheapen these times to speak of them? To write them down for strangers to know? I think it might. It feels that way. Do I even have the right to tell them without her here?
I think I will keep them as they are, secrets, once ours now solely mine, forever. I will share no more of the woman I loved, no more details. You cannot have them.
They are all I have left.
*
My father wasn’t there on my wedding day. I told him not to attend for all our sakes if he couldn’t be sober. I guess he decided he couldn’t. My uncles at least were there, apologetic on his behalf.
We married, traveled, moved across the country and bought a home. We built something back then, together. A life that was more than the sum of its parts.
Then one December 21st I snapped awake just before sunrise. I was uneasy, a cold sweat on my skin, as if I had woken from a nightmare I could not recall. My wife stirred beside me so I walked downstairs and poured a glass of water.
That feeling not only remained but was growing, a sick weight in chest, a rising fear of something searching for me. Coming closer.
I checked the doorlocks and windows, found my hands trembling as I did. I was terrified yet I had no idea why. My legs began to buckle under me, heart racing. I was ready to call out for my wife when I heard her cry in her sleep. A dream? Could she feel it too?
Then it stopped, as sudden as the flick of a switch.
I sat on the floor gasping for breath and saw the first rays of the sunrise.
*
My mom called me the next night. Said police had come round to tell her my father and my uncles were dead. She and I were the only living relatives.
There had been a fire at their cabin and no-one had survived.
A few weeks later the investigation concluded, for all that it was. The official story was that one of them, likely drunk, had knocked over one of their many candles or gasoline lamps. It was a sore fact that it didn’t seem unlikely at all.
*
Spoke to Doctor McVey today, got a check up to see if I might pass away before my designated slot. May come as a surprise to you but we’re still entitled to medical care.
“You think this place is gonna kill me before it kills me, doc?” I asked him as he worked through his checklist.
“You know my opinion on this place, Daniel.” he replied, that tired resignation in his voice.
Indeed I did know. He’d explained it to me when we first met 8 years earlier. He told me about death row syndrome, the name given to the delusions and suicidal ideation suffered by those scheduled for execution. Isn’t hard to figure out the cause. Nothing between now and your certain death but years of isolation. Loneliness like a weight, sinking you. Surprises me when anyone even makes it to their date without going crazy.
“You were sentenced to death,” McVey said, “but not years of torture first. Says more about the society doing the punishing than it does about those punished.”
Shit, even prisoner officers on death row have a shorter life expectancy than their colleagues, did you know that? Makes you think humans just aren’t designed for this kind of system. Still, despite my time here, he didn’t find a single thing wrong with me. Physically anyway.
When I was pulling on my shirt to leave I caught a look at myself in the mirror, scars over scars over scars. I tried to ignore them, knowing where the thoughts that followed would lead. That same road to those same faces.
“Is it hard doc?”
“What’s that?”
“Helping me. And the other prisoners. Knowing the things we done.”
He paused a moment before answering.
“Helping others is about who I am, Danny. Not who they are.”
*
We cleared out my fathers apartment the day after the funerals. In amongst the empty bottles and dirty clothes I found a letter he had been writing to me. Almost every sentence appeared to have been scrubbed and rewritten on any number of occasions.
“For my son, Danny. This letter has changed a lot over the years. I hope it will be right when the time comes. I wish this could be face to face but I’ve accepted now that isn’t to be. I wish I could have been a better father and a better man. I wish I could have listened when you needed me to and had the words you needed to hear. It’s my greatest fear that I failed you and you won’t believe my warnings. I am sorry for bringing you into this but no matter the pain it has caused I need you to know you were worth it. That was my grandfathers belief for my father and his for me. Maybe I was selfish having children with this curse, maybe they were too, but we can’t let it win. All life is risk and you were worth the risk. I loved you every way I could. Now, please, heed these words. Remember what I told you. Sunset till sundown. Need eyes on you every second of it. Don’t try anything clever like videocameras or -”
That’s where I stopped. I couldn’t take it anymore, couldn’t take how he could still hurt me in a hundred ways. Alcohol and craziness was all he ever seemed to have for me. I crushed the page and took a match to it, another mistake made in anger. Those were his last words like these are mine. His last chance at forgiveness and I put it in the fire. I just wanted to leave it behind, go back to my wife and forget it all.
I told myself later I forgave him and that I was fine and all the other lies we tell ourselves. Even now it is a grief and pain so fine and bitter I cannot face it, only hide it away behind the years.
*
Here we are at last, where my story begins and ends. The only part that truly matters.
A year after my fathers death I found myself becoming consumed with thoughts of his warnings. I had always dismissed it all as a ridiculous fantasy but somehow I couldn’t push it from my mind. December came and the day grew closer. I was a mess, struggling to sleep, anxious and irritable.
Then the 21st arrived. The weather was so bad it had forced us to cancel our plans for the night, snow so heavy the electricity had been cutting out, lights flickering all down the street.
I decided to tell my wife the truth, as embarrassing as it might be. She deserved an explanation for my behaviour over the last few months. I made dinner and afterwards we sat down to talk. She listened to my stories of my father, all of his craziness. I told the entire history, every part from the 1800s onward. I made an effort to hide how worried I was, but the previous December had shaken me.
She laughed it off at first then, seeing my uneasiness, smiled and offered to sit up with me through the night. I tried to laugh too but the knot in my chest had only tightened.
I remember we opened a bottle of wine and put on some music to drown out the storm. We were sat together on the couch still talking when I noticed the sky had darkened. My breath caught in my throat and a shiver ran through me. It was as if the world was slowing. The storm became only a whisper on the glass, the air growing cold.
I could feel it, like before. It was searching for me but closer, much closer. I sat up and turned to my wife.
She was still, skin suddenly pale, eyes wide and afraid and staring back.
Have you ever had your life changed in an instant? A gunshot? A carcrash? A confession? This was that moment, seeing the fear in her eyes and understanding that she could feel it too, what was coming. Understanding in that instant that it was all true, all of it, everything my father had said since I was 10 years old. It felt like a knife at my throat, ready, waiting. Fear like a physical thing wrapping around us both, taking hold.
“What’s going on?” she asked, voice trembling. “Danny?”
All the warmth was gone from the room, the windows now dark, the world outside quiet. It was coming and we could not get away. My fathers words came back to me, how to stay safe, the only way to stay safe.
“Don’t look away,” I said, “quickly. Look at me, like the story. We’re safe as long as we don’t look away.”
We locked eyes and I reached for her just as the tide broke, a rushing weight like a black wave crashing down on us. Then silence. Now there was only the sharp cold, the fear, and the feeling of being watched.
“It’s here.” I said.
We stared into each others eyes.
“I can feel it.” she replied, reaching for me. “Something watching us.”
As she spoke I felt tiny flickers on my spine, ice rising to my neck. It was when she blinked, I realized. When, for just an instant, no-one was looking at me. Then I caught movement behind her. I tried not to look, to focus on her and only her, to remember everything my father told me. I grabbed her shoulders to stop her turning.
“What is it?” she asked, voice rising with fear.
“Nothing. Just keep your eyes on me. We keep our eyes on each other. We can get through this. Get out of here.”
I was panicking, not thinking properly. My only focus became escape, a desperate need to flee. She was talking, voice running on, terrified. We both were I think but it’s hard to remember what was said. A lot of it is a blur now. I know we had started towards the door. To go for help, to run, I’m not certain. We just had to get away.
The wind howled outside as we got closer, the blizzard swirling against the windows.
“Don’t look away.” my voice repeating, over and over as we took another step. “I love you.” I told her that, I know I did.
Then I caught her eyes flicker over my shoulder. Felt that ice sharp chill flash up my spine. Saw the tears glisten on her skin as she whispered her last words.
“It’s behind you.”
Then the lights flickered and went out.
In the pitch black the world seemed to freeze around me. I felt its touch on me and I couldn’t move. My wife said my name but it sounded so far away.
Then the lights came on and I saw her face again, still before me, a step from the door. But it was already too late.
I watched as I let go of her arms, felt the smile spread across my face. Then I saw my fist rise and strike her across the face. I tried to stop it. I tried to help her, to speak, but I was no longer in control. I could only watch and listen.
And it all made sense, at last, in its own terrible way. All the things I had been told, all the clues, parts of stories not fully understood.
It will come for you, my father had said. It takes people. It wasn’t really there, I realized, it didn’t have a body of its own. That was just an illusion to frighten people into looking away. So it could take possession of a body it could use.
I thought of my ancestor who locked himself inside alone. Thought of how it had tried to escape then torn him apart when it couldn’t. This was why there was no use running, or hiding yourself away.
A new fear had filled me, one colder and crueller than before. A fear that came with understanding what was happening to me and what was going to happen. I tried to scream at my wife to run, to get away, but I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t move my limbs, not even close my eyes. I was trapped, no more than a passenger in my own body.
It leaned down and struck her again and she cried out. I struck her.
I wanted to stop it. I wanted to stop it more than anything I have felt in my life. I would have died to stop it. But there was nothing I could do, nothing but a silent scream as it made me watch.
When it was over it walked my body outside into the storm.
My elderly neighbor had come to the door with phone in hand, drawn by my wifes screams. The thing used me to kill him too, beating to death on the doorstep as he called for help.
Then it walked into the road, stopping the next vehicle. There was a family inside, parents and 2 children. I tried to stop it. I tried and when I couldn’t any longer I just tried not to look.
The thing controlling me reveled in it. Every moment of it.
The police arrived then and drew their weapons but it didn’t want to stop. It only laughed and charged. A shot rang out and pain blossomed in my shoulder. I fell, striking my head on the concrete beneath the snow. As it all went dark I prayed that they had killed me.
*
Two days left. This will be the last page I write.
I’ve given you the truth now, first time I have to anyone. I didn’t tell the police because how could it possibly have helped? Possession, to my knowledge, is not much of a defense in a court of law. There was, of course, a chance they would have thought I was crazy and I may have escaped the death penalty. But I wanted the death penalty, you understand now? I wanted an end to the curse, forever. It stops with me, the only good that will come of this.
What else do I have left to say? Clock is ticking. Soon I’ll be in that white room under the glare of the lights. One way glass, families of my victims on the other side. I wonder what I’ll say. Nothing, I hope. Can’t think of anything that won’t make it worse for them.
I see my father different now. A man struggling with a terrible truth all his life and losing to it. Knowing he was beaten but still fighting, trying to save what remained of the things he loved. Would I tell him it was it worth it? My life? Did he and my mother make a mistake? To me now it feels like they did but what of all the years that came before? Like any other life there is both good and evil and I suspect the truth is that we cannot have one without the other. That which lights our dreams also illuminates the horrors, they come hand in hand, inseparable.
And as for the curse? It came and took me again my first year in here and there was nothing it could do with me. Not in here. I could feel the fury as it realized it was trapped, that there was no escape. It wanted to kill me, to tear me apart with my own hands but it couldn’t do it. Because now it will die too. There is nowhere for it to go, I have no son and never will. I’ll be the last. It hurts me in its anger but a few scars mean nothing to me now.
*
The sun falls, last of the light fading through the dirty plastic. I’ll try to stay calm when it’s time. Try to think of better things. My father and forgiveness. My mother and her love. My wife and I, the way they were. All the beauty in the world that persists.
But these are only words. In truth they change nothing. I never seemed to have the right ones when it mattered, now they’re all I’ve got and they are worthless. I was never religious, never even considered it. Yet my fear of a nothingness after death is all encompassing. What was this all for? If there’s no God then all the evil and little good in the world comes from us, yet there seems so much more of one than the other. I don’t know. I’m lost here, helpless. So close to the end that it’s all I can see.
Maybe there’s some solace there, that in the end we are all the same, that I’m no different to anything or anyone else. Everything ends, that ever was or ever will be.
But it doesn’t make it easier, does it? Because time is all we truly have.
And time is a fire.