"Oh that I should go back," I thought. "They will know me, and I them, and the onerous words will comfort me even as I long for release from them.
""But I can never go back. I'd have to reverse my soul, which I can no more do than travel back in time, which perhaps was what I wish for now and all along.
""Is this true?" I wondered. "Would going there bring only an empty shell of contempt and horror before me? Or would I, could it be, that I would fall back into the warm dream, or even feel the hand of God again?
"In my formless, boyish way, would I even go, supposing I decided to? Would I make such a small sacrifice to endure such horror, or such comfort, or would I rather imagine myself doing it for a time?
"How I loathed what had been done. Foundations stripped away, left in airless wonder. Is it to seek solace in something warmer and destructive, one last great glorious kiss of life before death, and cast such thoughts into the wind until it must suddenly overcome?
"How can anyone, anyone at all understand. We understand nothing. We have no notion of heaven or hell. We are mortals, walking through prescriptions of life, comical sense of securities intact, and wondering what other souls in time mock our insight with words and song and art. Are we all fools, or is the last redeemer the inability to be aware of foolishness, sustained and sleeping?
"But there! I have thought more than enough. Too much perhaps. Beating stone only bruises the beater and these thoughts, like the others, pass away."
""But I can never go back. I'd have to reverse my soul, which I can no more do than travel back in time, which perhaps was what I wish for now and all along.
""Is this true?" I wondered. "Would going there bring only an empty shell of contempt and horror before me? Or would I, could it be, that I would fall back into the warm dream, or even feel the hand of God again?
"In my formless, boyish way, would I even go, supposing I decided to? Would I make such a small sacrifice to endure such horror, or such comfort, or would I rather imagine myself doing it for a time?
"How I loathed what had been done. Foundations stripped away, left in airless wonder. Is it to seek solace in something warmer and destructive, one last great glorious kiss of life before death, and cast such thoughts into the wind until it must suddenly overcome?
"How can anyone, anyone at all understand. We understand nothing. We have no notion of heaven or hell. We are mortals, walking through prescriptions of life, comical sense of securities intact, and wondering what other souls in time mock our insight with words and song and art. Are we all fools, or is the last redeemer the inability to be aware of foolishness, sustained and sleeping?
"But there! I have thought more than enough. Too much perhaps. Beating stone only bruises the beater and these thoughts, like the others, pass away."
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