No. 25

Kinda speechless at the moment, but Alan Moore Knows The Score. And the synchronicities, as always this time of year, are legion. From the same comic book issue that made me care about proper spelling to an irrational degree:

Autumn is coming.

Autumn...and something else. Something dark...

In the corner of his eye, a sudden blur of gray, moving through the treetops, up to the right...

He turns, focusing...

It's gone.

He stands.

He wonders.

What comes with the autumn?

...And the shadows are growing longer.

Something is wrong.

Something's been wrong all day...

The birds are silent in the branches.

The gators stay close to the bank, stomachs full of rocks and broken turtle shells.

Troubled, he sits...

And sleeps.

And dreams...

It is a dream of someone else, someone who wore flesh and not foliage...

A frightened man.

A man in a furnace.

Alec Holland.

He can hear the roar of the explosion, hear the dreadful sizzling and bubbling and popping...

He is propelled, a blazing stringless puppet stumbling through the flames like some Catholic martyr...

...And he screams...

...And falls...

...And wakes.

And thinks: "What is it that comes with autumn?"

And knows:

It is fear.

Burning in my own crucible, I'll see what I can grow from it.