mahiwaga

(inspired by a comment to a blog post by someone whom I’ve been blog-stalking on MySpace)

I already know what the ending is, at least in abstract terms. And there are good ways to good, and really bad ways as well. But you still go, one way or another.

The long dark. The Doom of Man. The endless sleep. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

I can’t help but think that faith in the afterlife is just so much self-aggrandizement, but that’s an entirely different argument, and perhaps a future post.

The weird thing is, I suppose, the fact that no matter what path I choose from here on out, the end is still going to be same. Well, the details will vary, but exactly how much do you care about details when you’re dying? I don’t know. I never asked. I figure you can’t really answer anyway when you’re unconscious, with a breathing tube down your throat.

So what I really care about is the middle part. The meat of the action. The story.

Beginnings are interesting, but they only get you so far. Endings are sort of the icing on the cake. Most of them are satisfyingly predictable. (Although I realize there are many that are not.)

It’s all about the middle.

June. Before the solstice and the fading of the sunlight. The beginning of summer is always the ending of another year. Another epoch. As usual, I am always facing the brink of time alone, each time finding myself further and further from civilization. (A voice cries out in the wilderness.) The exile has never ended. I’ve lost any hope of finding a distant shore. Like The Flying Dutchman denied from mooring at any port, I am forced to sail on, sail on.