The Bad Thing About Falling Into Pieces

--i Truly And Deeply Wanted To Kill Him. And I Believe I Could Have Done It, With Nothing But My Hands. But All Of A Sudden, Out Of Nowhere, Peter Had An Arm Around Me. "let It Go, Kade," He Was Whispering Very Gently, Though His Arm Was Nearly Crushing Me. "open Your Fists," He Said, "and Let Go Of The Coals.

And So I Learned What Solitude Really Was. It Was Raw Material - Awesome, Malleable,older Than Men Or Worlds Or Water. And It Was Merciless - For It Let A Man Become Precisely What He Alone Made Of Himself.

At Last The Cold Crept Up My Spine; At Last It Filled Me From Foot To Head; At Last I Grew So Chill And Desolate That All Thought And Pain And Awareness Came To A Standstill. I Wasn't Miserable Anymore: I Wasn't Anything At All. I Was A Nothing-- A Random Configuration Of Molecules. If My Heart Still Beat I Didn't Know It. I Was Aware Of One Thing Only; Next To The Gaping Fact Called Death, All I Knew Was Nothing, All I Did Meant Nothing, All I Felt Conveyed Nothing. This Was No Passing Thought. It Was A Gnawing, Palpable Emptiness More Real Than The Cold.

Punctuationally Speaking, Wonder Is A Period At The End Of A Statement We've Long Taken For Granted, Suddenly Looking Up And Seeing The Sinuous Curve Of A Tall Black Hat On Its Head, And Realizing It Was A Question Mark All Along.

Then In October, Indian Summer, The Air Turned So Soft, The Sunlight So Fragile, And Each Day's Loveliness So Poignantly Doomed That Even Self-ignorance And Restlessness Felt Like Profound States Of Being, And He Just Wandered The Empty Beaches And Misty Headlands In A State Of Serene Confusion And Awe.