Maturity, One Discovers, Has Everything To Do

What Miracle Is This? This Giant Tree. It Stands Ten Thousand Feet High But Doesn't Reach The Ground. Still It Stands. Its Roots Must Hold The Sky.

Because The Enormous Narcissism Of Their Parents Deprived Will And Tom Of Suitable Role Models, Both Brothers Learned To Identify With Absence. Consequently, Even If Something Beneficial Fortuitously Entered Their Lives They Immediately Treated It As Temporary. By The Time They Were Teenagers They Were Already Accustomed To A Discontinuous Lifestyle Marked By Constant Threats Of Abandonment And The Lack Of Any Emotional Stability. Unfortunately, "accustomed To" Here Is Really Synonymous With "damaged By.

The Thread Has Snapped. No Sound Even To Mark The Breaking Let Alone The Fall. That Long Anticipated Disintegration, When The Darkest Angel Of All, The Horror Beyond All Horrors, Sits At Last Upon My Chest, Permanently Enfolding Me In Its Great Covering Wings, Black As Ink, Veined In Bees' Purple. A Creature Without A Voice. A Voice Without A Name. As Immortal As My Life. Come Here At Long Last To Summon The Wind.

Tom Gets By, Navidson Succeeds. Tom Just Wants To Be, Navidson Must Become. And Yet Despite Such Obvious Differences, Anyone Who Looks Past Tom's Wide Grin And Considers His Eyes Will Find Surprisingly Deep Pools Of Sorrow. Which Is How We Know They Are Brothers, Because Like Tom, Navidson's Eyes Share The Same Water.

You Got A Death Wish, Truant?' Which Was The Thing That Scared Me. 'cause Maybe I Did.