I shed a cocoon of indifference and apathy and unfurled my wings into the brightness of the sun and climbed ever higher to heights above the earth and cloud. At last I was where I belonged! With eagles I soared!

Eagle site found its mark and thus began a perilous and rapid descent. Wings folded to my side, wind whistling it's shrill in my ears, the ground rapidly came to meet me. My mind raced with thoughts of fellow warriors both real and imagined who had shared this moment. Don Quixote defending his beloved Dulcinea against terrible monsters; Frodo Baggins climbing into the peril of Mount Doom to cast into Melkor's fiery forges the ring of power; Horatio Hornblower commanding the King's colours to be struck as he sailed boldly into the enemies harbour broad siding them and scuttling his own man-of-war in the mouth of the harbour; John Paul Jones clinging to victory and against all odds declaring to HMS SERAPIS; "I have not yet begun to fight!"

My quest looming ever closer, I spread my mighty wings to brake against the air, to aim my talons to grab the goal! When despair shot through my heart! Years of neglect, selfishness, and inactivity had hobbled the very weapons I needed now so desperately! I saw the Holy Grail slowly fade in my site as I barely broke my headlong meeting with the earth, and eventually disappear altogether. My moment, my creation, my reason for living was wasted by bands that had so long ago been formed and for so long had been forgotten.

Why upon the soil of the earth with heart in hand must I wander, My life is fodder and I can feel his terrible heat blow?

Why must I survive his torturous blasts against my puny life? Think! Think! Isn't there way to end my strife?

Have I deserved the agony I feel and felt again and again and again? I have, though at the time it didn't seem so.

My peace is gone; forever must I wander the endless realms in shame and pain For my life I have squandered and left my treasures to bear the shame.

The world is indeed small when one tries his self to hide. There's no crevasse or hole large enough to enter and yet so small to completely conceal inside.

In my ears I hear the shrill! Again you fool! Again! I would change my life for the good but tis not possible, the demon has come again.

What we do is what binds us to the ground And holds us captive to the lifeless demon that makes not a sound.

I say I am afraid of the demon. Yet his awful presence I must bear. Because, oh dear ones, I look into the mirror and he is there. He has eaten up the image of who did once reside. The demon engulfed his dreams and talents and fed his vicious appetite.

Gradually my skin became wrinkled and I became mad at what ever I did see. The anger crept into my heart where nothing but goodness once lay. Anger devoured the love and goodness that used to fill the space.