I see the future, in shadow and fog,

dark and obscured, set behind heavy veils.

Behind me: what I have done against God.

Before me: no salvation by angels.

I can not compensate for my deeds,

only endeavour to do better things;

to avail myself to time's sand-drawings;

then blow away as a grain in the wind.

By God's measure my life is worth less

than a drop of water in the ocean.

So I cling to the world like an infant

struggling for its mother. Though in the end

I know that nothing but memories last.

I take a slow breath, and exhale the past.

One day, some time afterward, I was sitting out in the back yard. The night sky was hung low over my head, draped over me like a hood. There was silence and I was thinking about all the things that had happened in my life. I could see how everything had led up to this, and how it was in some way my destiny.

I do think about what I have done, and what I have not done. My accomplishments in this life amount to little. Maybe I can take comfort in that.

I look up, past the liquid veil above; beyond the stars; behind the black. The bones of the dead are crying for justice, and sometimes I believe that something is there to hear them.

THE END