Chapter 1 

So there it was. Everything I had known and felt. All those battles that seemed to tear the living energy out of me, all the aspiration, all the heart-ache. There, an almost infinitesimal spot covered by a cloud or clump of trees. It was Eden for a while, then a Hell. I shook myself from the Hell and entered a middle phase that had neither angels nor devils but ate up time like some invisible ghoul hee-heeing in the background. “Please don’t do this to me,” I would plead, silently at first. I heard nothing but the roll of tires and a jet travelling high above me. Then I would get hungry or had to do some menial chore and did my duty.

I did love it so! Even the treachery had a bit of poetry in it. Someone had conceived of a large plan and I had been the victim. My insides tumbled like I was falling from the tallest building but the effect wore off soon enough.

The further removed I was from Earth the more nostalgic I got for my time spent there. A brief sigh, that was it. But what radiance poured through my brain! We were more than just animals, I convinced myself of that long before. Not better, mind you, but different.

David Eide
January 24, 2014