Upon sun kissed hillside I stride, upon this crimson stained beach of the sky’s great ocean. Lo, my sullied feet are the means of such pitiable conveyance as even the pauper of the utmost deficiency might still look upon me with winsome eyes, glistening as empathetic orbs under the cruel light of day.

I feel no such sorrow for myself.

Amidst this turbid tide of pebbles and dust have I laid to rest, put peacefully down to permanent slumber, a host of horrid souls whose ascent to the great God who made them is as a rush of contra-wise rain intent upon flooding the heavens and washing out the gutters of purgatory. They rise! They rise, inestimable and glorious, an ode to the capacity of our race to wage glorious war!

I trudge on.

My body is an eloquent machine, oiled with sweat at this hour, taut with fear and purpose, every inch a piston of potential power. I surge. I move. I push. The heat courses in me, and I become the furnace of man’s desires, both dark and otherwise.

I shall not stop.