The Whispering Of The Darkness Gets Louder.

Writing the post immediately below was like trying to pull a rusty razorblade out of a tall, narrow olive jar. The whispering Darkness drowns out much else in my ears just now. Maybe it will leave me if I get enough sleep. Maybe. Maybe the medications will dull it by tomorrow, by next year, by 2006.

Maybe.

I have to hang on. The true story of Mrs. Claus' future is yet to be told. It will be a devastating story belonging not just to Mrs. Claus, but to thousands more. The facts must be placed here like a message in a bottle. Or a name and year marks on a prison wall. When the facts are in, I have to be able to write it, so I must continue to put words in a row until then, no matter how much fatigue and weariness it causes me. There must be some record of the crime and the names of the criminals.

The mental nausea is overwhelming, so I must write about the nausea. I must write therefore I am...aren't I? The coffee, the claustrophobia, the absolute ringing dreadfulness of the least sound made by all the families with children in Half Price Books, and the sweating nervousness of driving in freshly fallen sleet....these are the last, or nearly the last, events of 2005. Someday they, or their like, will be the last events of all.

Ring out the old, ring in the new. Meet the new Boss. Same as the old Boss. Guide your ferryboat into the darkening water where no lighthouse is left and pray you do not flounder on the shoals. Fare forward. Don't look back.

There is no forward. There is no back. There is no yesterday--it is gone. There is no tomorrow--it does not yet exist. There is no now because, as soon as you try to grab it, it fades away to nothing.

There is only the burdensome New Moon tonight, hanging around my neck like a millstone. There is only the coming weather front line, squeezing the acid ache, drop by drop, into my knuckles, my hips, and my knees. In eighteen years the New Moon will finally be at this place, this night, once again. On the last day of 2023.

When computer generated astrology charts first became available around 1980, I systematically did progressions and transits for myself for every year to 2030. The year 2023 was the year I calculated that my health would deteriorate abruptly, badly, and permanently until my fading away from renal failure sometime in 2026.

Twenty years, if this be true. Twenty years to watch the foolishness and hope it is salted occasionally with some wisdom. Twenty years to be the foolishness myself.

Twenty years ago I was happy. No matter why, the fact is sufficient.

Twenty years hence I might be happy again to watch the last fading, in the few hours that I might be awake. Renal failure is like that. I've seen it from the outside and it's not too bad. You simply sleep longer and longer until, finally, you die.

The Moon died into the fire of the sun, somewhere, wanly, above the clouds today. The year will die in two hours like a black, whimpering cur. It was that kind of year.