Noon, Ripe As Thunder And Silent As

There Is A Kind Of Laughter That Sickens The Soul. Laughter When It Is Out Of Control: When It Screams And Stamps Its Feet, And Sets The Bells Jangling In The Next Town. Laughter In All Its Ignorance And Cruelty. Laughter With The Seed Of Satan In It. It Tramples Upon Shrines; The Belly-roarer. It Roars, It Yells, It Is Delirious: And Yet It Is As Cold As Ice. It Has No Humor. It Is Naked Noise And Naked Malice.

His Was Not The Hatred That Arises Suddenly Like A Storm And As Suddenly Abates. It Was, Once The Initial Shock Of Anger And Pain Was Over, A Calculated Thing That Grew In A Bloodless Way.

As I See It, Life Is An Effort To Grip Before They Slip Through One's Fingers And Slide Into Oblivion, The Startling, The Ghastly Or The Blindingly Exquisite Fish Of The Imagination Before They Whip Away On The Endless Current And Are Lost For Ever In Oblivion's Black Ocean.

The Sun Sank With A Sob And Darkness Waded In From All Horizons So That The Sky Contracted And There Was No More Light Left In The World, When, At This Very Moment Of Annihilation, The Moon, As Though She Had Been Waiting For Her Cue, Sailed Up The Night.

It Was Not Certain What Significance The Ceremony Held... But The Formality Was No Less Sacred For It Being Unintelligible