Daily Struggle

Dark and foggy, open ocean waves swelling in great boils all around, the great stone fortress is sinking. As had been foretold, so I knew from intuition—therefore I feel no strong emotion against it. No joy, nor melancholy, nor fulfillment, nor indignation fills my heart as I watch the killing waters lap slowly up the walls, eating their way through the rock-solid foundation. I am merely bowed in submission to the fate which befalls the solitary stronghold. Soon all the secrets buried inside will be washed away, drifting down through the dastardly sea—whose swirling currents are cloaked black as night—and disappearing from existence, as if they never were.

I am sinking. Resigned to my sorrows which evaporated long ago, lost in a cloud of gloom which so often blinds the whimsical moonstruck lover whose target gives them no second glance, I offer no resistance. The treacherous waters suck at my foundation, eating it away, slowly rising. Come dying; death awaits.

I raise my lusterless eyes to the East, where the sun nevermore shall rise: “Oh, if there be one righteous being, some divine entity who rules the skies,” I pray, “Then spare me one more day, one more turn of the Earth!”

A glimmer, a glint, and the morning rays break through, golden shafts piercing the night and chasing the darkness away, which flees back into the ocean from which it was born. The waters recede. God is merciful.

Thus I open my eyes that morning, the battle won once again.