I lost lucidity a long time ago. This is my story.
It was winter, cold and silent. The forest was new pine, not old at all. Land cleared within some small number of years ago. I was young and cold. It was ecstatic.
A branch broke, with it silence. The sound, coming and going was singular. Rather than filling the well of memory, the well opened wide. It yawned. Time disappeared. Good riddance.
I have only landscapes now, punctuated by violence.
You are here to hear a story, though aren't you?
I always liked blades, even as a child. The pure ability to separate things with a fine edge excited my mind. I spent a lot of time making things sharper. I have heard that glass is the sharpest thing to form. Broken it works just fine, no sharpening required.
It wasn't enough to cut the first one, not enough at all. I had to have more. I ate his heart and his liver, not because of some naïve idea that I could possess his power but that it seemed right to do. I was twelve. The child of the pines was gone.
They came after me, of course. Have you ever thought that coursing is a way to go forward? Mindless, like gnats. It troubles me, the swarming outrage. Insects protecting the hive. The fat matron wielding a butcher's knife. It made the transition complete. There was no back.
The asylum sat high on the hill above the moors, the sounds from the windows were perfect. Company every time I passed. I was young and in love.
Some have accused me of being a predator. I suppose I was that day, when they came for me. Like lambs to slaughter. Over all these years I have marveled at the willingness to seek death. As if it was hardwired. All under the walls where the mad were interred. Blood on snow. Like red pearls fading to black.
And the blade of morning.