“And I know that this will bring discomfort, confusion, pain and unsettled feelings to those I love . . .”

There is a time . . . when the world is overcome by blackness, an emptiness that shakes the foundation of all life and shatters the quickening core.  A darkness unparalleled in the physical world.  It enters upon a death-knell of selfish arrogance and kills all beauty and wonder.  It’s depth, a famine of the soul that grips you . . . emptying your essence into a swirling void of fear and pain.  A vile filth-pit, stealing and eviscerating, leaving you bereft of any virility you possessed.  There is a time . . . when you reach the end . . . the terminal point of the winding road, when you stand . . . precariously and ominously . . . on the precipice.  Looking down, you see the vacuum . . . an immense, overpowering ice-shadow, reaching toward you to steal you . . . deceptively taunting, purring a vomitous call, it declares a vile, poisonous promise to rescue you.  Your heart darkens; as fear and hopelessness envelop you . . . you shriek an inhuman scream, beckoning to the apparitional spectres that float closer to you to swallow you as you succumb to blackened dread. Powerlessness takes you, your muscles release, you crumple, and deathly, you fall . . . over the edge . . .