Neglect

The struggle becomes too great. The constant toiling strain to keep above the rising, rushing tide of a life’s cares, concerns and petty things. Gasping jaws, flailing arms -rocked and buffeted- dragged under- clamouring above- keeping at bay the sucking, pulling darkness all around, fighting for the brilliant light and sweet breath. But ever present is that cold; the creeping fatigue, the suffocating hopelessness, the drain of mind and will and the slow erosion of self.

Companions fail, each according to their own private undoing and the union of mind is undone. Your teacher, Reason- noble and erect in the sunlight, stutters and trembles in the dark. Your lover, Passion- bold and impetuous in the charge, soon tires and recants his extravagant vows. Your mistress Truth, haughty and beautiful in form, is impossible to appease and is hated and abused.

But it is not a malign and cunning thing that conquers, not cold rationale, or bitter realisation, it is just the worm. The decay, the rot, the slow cancer of the mind; without face or presentation, a power blind and dumb and without motive or strategy, but ancient, dreadfully powerful, and eternal. The worm conquerors, he is the master of death; and the silence, the peace, the unknowing of final death is present in life; it is lethargy, hopelessness and despair, and they foreshadow that death. The worm conquers; but brief, uncertain life can be won -beaten, strangled and eventually recalled- this small happy thing can exist for time, so long as a will is there to safeguard it.