Path ...

You have the stage. And now you may speak.

At last it is your turn.

And your words, refined, rehearsed for a moment look as bright and lustrous as you always dreamed they would.

But a second glance reveals the truth: twisted, rotten, useless.

All you had waited for, hoped for, now rests elsewhere; lost to the wind of ambition. You must make your stand defenceless, or walk away, forever defeated.

The hollow memories that frame your life decide this for you: the chill breeze of fear sets them in motion. Dull, flat notes clanging, banging against each other, and their mournful, ghostly tones are too much to bear: frightening, macabre, unnatural.

But still each step is deliberated, quick to take confidence, slow to give support. Persuasive, irrefutable; right. You want to believe it because you cannot deny it. It is. And that is…all there is.

You feel the weight of expectation. Whose? Yours? Theirs? Both. And more?

The mocking strengthens your resolve, but sets your heart against you. You cannot win, you CANnot, you…take another step.

Place one foot in front of the other, do what you have learned to do without concentration, effort, thought: follow nature’s course.

Breathe deep and don’t look down, don’t look around. Ignore the soaking palm, the shuddering limb, the winnowing bones. Ignore it all and stand to face them. Face them all.

You reach the stage, and grasp the lectern envigoured, you turn and –