God’s Land, Shadowland

May 9th

Blood in the toilet. In times of old, death would announce itself to men in the form of a raven. My notice came as red mist, settling at the bottom of an otherwise pristine bowl. Maddie, love of my life and self-appointed soothsayer, wept when the Stage 4 diagnosis came back and wasted no time in telling me it was my fault for eating bologna and cheese sandwiches every day for lunch.

“I told you, Wade!” she cried. “Those meats have lead in them!”

Maybe she’s right. Who knows?

Anyway, it was Dr. Fletcher’s suggestion I start keeping a journal for my mental health and to leave something behind, some kind of record, for my family. It’s not like I have anything better to do anyway. Luckily I had some money stashed away for retirement and since Jamie – bright boy that he is – got a full ride at Loyola, I can use a chunk of that cash to spend what time I’ve got left on my own terms.

For other people, that would probably mean scaling Mount Everest or sampling Tuscany’s finest wines as they stroll across Elysian fields. But I don’t need any of that. My mind can carry me to wherever I need and can make it look more real than reality itself. No, I’m quite content just to stay here, in Arcanum, Ohio, watching reruns of M.A.S.H. until all the sand in my hourglass has fallen.

May 11th

Jamie video-called today. I can still see the grief in his face though he tries his best to hide it. He’s always been a good boy. He tried to come home after I got sick but I wouldn’t let him. I can’t have my son giving up his bright future just to come tend to me like I’m some doddering invalid.

I’ve still got my wits about me. And since there’s no point in chemo, I’ve still got my hair! Sure, there are bouts of debilitating pain. I’m always bloated even after vomiting – and my goddamn throat is always so raw – but I don’t look like a skeleton yet.

M.A.S.H is finally starting to get good now that I’m in Season 2. I remember watching reruns with my dad years ago. I even got him the whole DVD set shortly after I started working at the firm and he had taken up preaching in Lewisburg.

It’s been six years since he passed. I miss him everyday. But hey, maybe I’ll see him soon.

Positive thoughts, Wade.

May 14th

Maddie keeps finding reasons not to be in the house with me. We’ve been on the downslope for years and when Jamie moved out, the atmosphere in the house got a hell of a lot more confrontational.

A few months back, I got shit-faced one night and we got into it in a real nasty kind of way. I told her how deeply I loved her in spite of the fact she was an inconsiderate harpy that ran up credit card bills and left messes for me to clean up in every room of the house like I was her mother, and how she just said whatever cruel shit came into her head.

When it was all out of me, I stood empty in the silence with shaking hands. I waited for her to deliver her own searing indictment of my coldness towards her, of how I only saw her as a fixture in my life rather than a person – the grand conclusions of small hints she had jabbed my way over the years.

Instead, she simply walked out of the living room, went upstairs, and cried for hours.

She started leaving the house more to go to Greenville. Then more became everyday. Then she’d come home just in time for us to eat a silent dinner spiced with resentment. We still shared the same bed but our room was more of a tomb than anything else.

I got it in my head that maybe she was seeing someone. And then decided, well, that’s just fine with me. This was about two weeks before I went to the doctor, and now sometimes she doesn’t come home until she knows I’m in bed fast asleep.

I wish I still had it in me to care.

May 18th

Clayton came over today. He had on his favorite trucker hat and an Allman Brothers shirt. He was carrying some kind of tray, which turned out to be an eggplant tortilla casserole.

“I don’t know if you can even eat this shit, brother, but Jayla says her cousin had the same cancer you do and this helped him.”

I like Clayton a lot. He and his wife run a dude ranch about 15 miles outside of town and make a fair bit of money giving cowboy fantasies to rich types wanting to get away from it all. Maddie had met Jayla in town at the salon and it was just one of those things where Clayton and I got dragged on a double date, but we liked each other enough we became friends.

He’s an outdoorsman – loves hunting, knows how to train and ride horses, all that shit – but he also has a bit of culture about him. He’s always reading. History books, trashy paperbacks, literary classics. He got me into Cormac McCarthy after years of resistance. I returned the favor by gifting him copies of Moshfegh and Saunders.

Today, we stood on the porch for a bit and talked about Stephen King’s new book, this one about a hitman. When it was time for him to go, he brought up the horse again.

“He’s still waiting there, y’know?”

I smiled. “You think I can ride in this condition?”

“We can take it slow. Marco’s a good boy. He’ll be gentle.”

“Maybe,” I told him.

“Don’t you want to know what it’s like, being up there on one of the world’s most majestic creatures, feeling the air in your face as you ride? I know you’ve read about it a hundred different ways, but there’s nothing quite like the actual thing.”

I told him I’d think on it. I loved horses from a distance, but I don’t trust anything that’s got wild in it. I’d seen enough headlines about fools who had gotten their face chewed off by trained tigers or, more relevantly, had been bucked from horses and broken their necks.

But the funny thing about being at death’s doorstep is the way you leave this world ends up becoming less important, especially when there’s still so much you haven’t experienced.

I’m closing my eyes. I see myself on the horse, trotting down the road towards the horizon in search of adventure, like a gunslinger of old.

May 24th

We woke up to a world of darkness.

Like something out of one of dad’s fire and brimstone sermons. The Fox News and CNN people have tried to explain it as best as they can but are at a loss. The government isn’t acknowledging there are pockets of darkness opening up at seemingly random points across the world even though videos of the damn things are all over YouTube and Twitter.

Jamie sent me footage of one just off the water in Tom’s River, New Jersey. At first I thought he was putting me on because it was this shoddy looking thing, a black square against the daytime – like something that someone had made in Photoshop or something. Cheap as hell but unnerving.

Nobody knows what’s going on but lots of people are pretending they do. The nut jobs are saying the aliens are finally here, but that they’re just not in saucers. They were interviewing this one guy, Marlowe Topaz, he’s some kind of UFO expert. He says these aliens don’t need ships because they “traverse our dreams.” Seems like bullshit but at the same time, it’s not like I have any other explanation that makes sense.

If dad was still here, he’d be in line with the rest of the religious crowd screaming that the revelation is at hand.

I can hear his voice now. “God’s taking the light back,” he’d say. “It’s not ours anymore.”

May 25th

They’ve figured out there are nine dark squares littered across the world, three in the US. No clear pattern. Some are near cities, others above the ocean, others in the middle of nowhere. And wouldn’t you know it, we got one 20 miles from us, over near Pleasant Hill – hovering over the interstate like a messed up cloud.

The government finally acknowledged all of this. The president gave a speech this morning about how we must cling together in the face of uncertainty and that the county’s brightest minds were being deployed to investigate this phenomenon. I imagine every country’s president is saying something similar but I’ve been too preoccupied to watch them.

Maddie and I haven’t talked about the darkness. She takes her meals in the dining room. I eat mine in my chair as M.A.S.H heads into its fourth season. Lieutenant Colonel Blake is about to fly home away from the war, no idea that grim fate is right there, coiled and waiting to strike.

I have a message, Lieutenant Radar says….Henry Blake’s plane shot down…no survivors. The doctors in the operating tent weep quietly, some of them just stare off into space, others bear down on their work, gently pulling scalpels across flesh. Nobody knows what to do with death.

I can hear Maddie upstairs. She’s talking to someone on the phone. She’s not fighting to conceal her voice anymore. I miss you. She’s not talking to Jamie.

Outside, in the world proper, there are things happening beyond our comprehension and yet our little lives and their dramas continue apace.

May 30th

The darkness is growing. The squares were no bigger than a shipping container last week. Now they’re each a mile long, gobbling up more light in every direction as they spread.

China reportedly flew a helicopter into the square hovering above the Yellow Sea. There’s even videos of the chopper going in but who knows if those are real. The line between reality and fantasy has all but vanished at this point. China’s not sharing whatever they found, so of course the US is gonna withhold their findings, as will the UK, Russia, and so on.

There are already federal research camps stationed outside of Ludlow Falls. At least a hundred people over there: scientists, soldiers waving reporters and TikTok kids away with their assault rifles. Our town and all the others near us are filled with tourists who have come to see the black square with their own eyes – though roadblocks prevent them from getting anywhere near it.

Clayton came over last night. We spent the whole night talking about The Good Lord Bird but kept the TV on in case the reporters had some worthwhile update. They didn’t.

At one point, Clayton took a sip of his beer and sighed deeply. I could tell where the conversation was heading. “Jayla says Maddie left in the middle of the night.”

I nodded. “There’s a man she’s been seeing over in Greenville.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he told me. “Ain’t right leaving you in this state.”

“I’d rather her be gone honestly and happy than be here deceptively and miserable,” I told him, which I think is the truth. Sometimes it’s hard to tell how I feel about things.

“You can come stay with me and Jayla if you want. Hell, we got cabins over at the ranch. Even with all these folks coming in because of this dark square shit, we keep one free at all times for friends. You don’t have to be in this alone is all I mean.”

I thanked him for his kindness but told him I was okay where I was. Sure, I was lonely but I think some part of me – maybe a lot of me – likes this, though the pain is getting worse.

I need to remember to pick up my Tapentadol from the pharmacy tomorrow.

June 5th

The government has started sending people into Pleasant Hill. The town’s gone now. Swallowed up in darkness. They evacuated everyone, of course, before they sent folks wearing hazmat suits into that void. Someone snuck into the research outpost and got the whole thing on video: four figures adorned from head-to-toe in white stepping into the now-massive cube and passing through to wherever it takes them.

Another dimension? Another planet? To heaven? To hell?

That was a week ago. The feds haven’t said anything but everybody already knows the score. Hungary has copped to sending their own scientists in and not receiving any updates from the other side. Whatever is over there is keeping people from reporting back. I hope it’s interference of some kind and not…well, I don’t even know what I’m afraid of.

I guess I’m not even afraid for myself as much as I am Jamie. He called today. Asked me what I thought about everything. I told him it’d be fine. When you’re a parent, lying comes natural like that. I told him just to focus on his studies. The people in charge would get right down to the bottom of it and all of this would go away.

“It just takes time,” I told him. Brutal, merciless time that slashes away at your joys, blows gently on the candle of your life until it all goes dark.

He was nice enough to return his own lie, a false nod of confidence in my reassurances.

Sorry Jamie. The man who used to lift you over his head as you squealed with joy is nearly gone. If you read this one day, take comfort in knowing the last thing that will go out of me as I draw to a close is my love for you.

June 7th

The darkness is spreading, growing exponentially each day. Each square stretches miles upon miles. The Pleasant Hill darkness took Ludlow Falls, West Milton, countless neighborhoods. It’s at Covington’s city limits. More government people are here, but they’re also pulling back day-by-day as the square grows, its dark body clashing with the blue sky – devouring tree, asphalt, everything in its path.

We can’t quite see it over here in Arcanum yet but it won’t be long. Some people have already started leaving. I’ve been watching from my porch. Every now and then a truck or van pulling a trailer filled with belongings. Some of them I know by name. The Williamsons. The Goldbergs. The Jacksons. I give them a friendly wave as if to say I wish I could have gotten to know you better.

When the vehicles are gone, I go back to reading as the wind blows gently across my forehead. The new Saunders collection is quite good. I will have to tell Clayton about it later.

June 9th

Maddie called today. She asked how I was doing. The formality in her voice told me whatever she might have felt once about me, she has killed and buried behind a brick wall Cask of Amontillado-style.

I guess I can’t blame her. If I should allow myself total honesty, I could have been warmer toward her, a more attentive husband instead of one who grew tired of her constant needs, who saw her as a burden instead of a supportive partner. Not that I liked her enough to tell her these things and let her off the hook for being an asshole. We all have limits.

“You doing ok, Wade?”

“Just fine,” I told her.

She asked me to send her some things from her room and gave the address. A hat she forgot. Some jewelry passed down to her from her mother.

“You should leave, Wade. That thing is going to be there soon.”

“I suppose I should.”

“We could come get you. Dave and I.”

“Is Dave your…”

“Yes. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have mentioned him.”

“No. It’s good to know where we stand. I don’t feel anything about it anyway. I got things on my mind.”

“Sure,” she said. I could tell she was holding back a sniffle. I don’t know if I meant to make her feel bad when I said what I said but I regretted having said it in any case.

“Well, we could get you and find you a place to stay. We know people here. They’d help.”

“It’s gonna be up there in Greenville soon. You’re gonna have to move soon too.”

“You don’t know that.” Her voice was panicky and righteous. “They’ve got the Department of Defense and all these smart folks looking at it. They’ll figure it out, bab–” She stopped herself. Old habits die hard.

“I’m fine, Maddie. Go live your life. Be happy. I mean that. I’m not being shitty. I’ll send you your things tomorrow.”

“But–”

I ended the call.

June 12th

My father became a preacher a couple of years after Jamie was born. I don’t think that had anything to do with it. My mother had been dead for about 10 years at that point, so I don’t think the grief was a part of it either.

He never really talked about the why except to say “God called me to it.” I didn’t make the effort to ask him too much about it. Religion and I hadn’t mixed and, truth be told, I didn't care much what he did as long as it made him happy and didn’t hurt anyone.

He used to tell Jamie stories from the Bible but not in a preachy way. Just the exciting stuff that made for good tales to ensnare a boy’s growing imagination.

I remember watching Jamie’s eyes light up as he heard about the snake in the garden, about how David felled Goliath, about Moses and that burning bush, and – of course – the plagues. My father loved to tell the story of the plagues. What’s not to love? Frogs, blood, boils, lice. And of course, darkness. Total and complete darkness.

I made this mistake of talking about my dad’s faith with him once. It was on the anniversary of mom’s death. I had had a little too much whiskey and my father was sitting next to me. Jamie had fallen asleep watching Adventure Time, Maddie was smoking on the porch. I was thinking about how deeply I missed my mother, how cruel it was that I only got 12 years with her.

“Why do you think God punishes his people so harshly?” The question had flown out of me, a bird narrowly escaping the captivity of its cage as the door swung shut. He looked at me, eyes wide in surprise, perhaps just as shocked as I that I would actually talk about his faith with him. Then he looked down at the floor, thought deeply for a minute, and turned back to me.

“Because we deserve it, son.”

“How can you know?”

He spoke calmly. “Look around you. We have countless people dying to sickness and poverty while the rich hoard their wealth. We choke this planet to death everyday in smog and filth and man-made sludge just so we can have convenience. We sell our children’s future so we can have pleasures today.

“He gave us this beautiful world he made with his own two hands and charged us to be the custodians of – and we’ve ground it into a wasteland fit for no one. We had heaven and we’ve made it into hell. Whatever punishment the lord sees fit to bestow upon us is frankly a mercy compared to what we deserve.”

“Even total annihilation?” I suggested.

“Yes,” he said, without pause.

We never talked about God again.

June 15th

Clayton came by today. Wouldn’t take no for an answer. We rode over to the ranch and by noon I was astride Marco, a Paint Horse with white splotches across a muscular brown body. We went slow, at a trot, with Clayton watching nearby.

“He’s gentle,” I called out.

Clayton nodded. “Marco’s a good one. We even let kids on him. Ain’t ever had a problem.”

I rode around the ranch’s circle on him for a bit, patting his mane. It wasn’t quite like riding across the plains in a McCarthy book but it made for a nice afternoon. Afterwards, we drank Heineken down by a pond. I noticed a lot of cardboard boxes by the house.

“Y’all going too, I take it?”

He nodded. “It’s getting close. Kind of why I wanted you to come up today, so we could talk about you coming with us.”

“When are you leaving?”

“A few days, I imagine. Jayla and I almost have the house packed up.”

“What’s gonna happen to the ranch?”

He shrugged. “Whatever happens to anything that goes into one of them.”

“You guys built this place up from nothing.”

He nodded.

“Aren’t you upset to leave it?”

“Sure, but I figure it’s God's will, y’know? He’s been good to me and Jayla all these years. We’ve got money put away. If He wants us to leave this place, we’ll go.”

“But what if it follows?”

Another shrug. “Then it follows.”

I nodded, struck by the doom hidden in such a simple statement.

“Come with us, Wade.”

I thought on it, sighed. “I can’t.”

“Why not?”

I told him the truth. I couldn’t explain why. It just felt wrong. I had built my life here. Married, had a kid, mourned my father, been left by my wife – all in little Arcanum, Ohio. I couldn’t walk away from 20 years like it didn’t mean anything to me.

“Well, I think that’s foolish,” he told me angrily.

“I know. I don’t necessarily disagree.”

“Just think it over. Please.”

I lied, told him I would. Then we had another beer, talked about the good times – like when Jayla got drunk on July 4th and accidentally flashed the entire town at a barbecue – and I went home to my empty house.

June 18th

I fainted today. First time that’s happened. I remember gripping the bathroom sink to try and steady myself from the pain coursing through my side, like an earthquake in my guts. I closed my eyes but when I opened them I was on the tile floor with a serious headache.

Perhaps equally distressing was discovering there was no power in my house. Light switches, nothing. Luckily it was the middle of the day so I just broke out the gas and turned on the backup generator. I tried to call Clayton to figure out what was going on but the phone lines were down. The internet wasn’t working either.

Eventually, I got into a truck and rode into town to find the few shops that hadn’t been abandoned – the local pharmacy and convenient store – had lanterns up. I walked in the pharmacy, got my prescriptions and asked Richard, who had inherited the business from his dad, if he had any idea what was going on.

“It’s almost reached the power plant. Whatever it’s doing, it’s messing with the stuff there.”

“The dark, you mean?”

“Yeah. It’s over there on the golf course. If you ride out on Apple Street a bit, you can see it for yourself.”

I took him up on that. I drove south for about three miles and turned left. A minute later, I saw the shape with my own eyes. A wall of black that rose to touch the sky and maybe even swelled above it. It seemed so impossible, the way this massive darkness brushed up against the light of dusk and the green of trees as it slowly devoured them.

I watched for a bit. If it was moving, it was doing so at such a glacial pace I wasn’t able to perceive any progress. I looked out and saw two figures on the 13th hole of the golf course. It took me a second to realize that they weren’t paying any attention to the darkness, even though it had devoured the clubhouse and at least a quarter of the course. They were putting, perhaps trying to get one last game in on their favorite course before curtain call.

I watched one of them hit the ball a little too hard, sending it flying into a sandpit, and then I got back in my truck and went home.

June 19th

This morning I drove north for about an hour and finally got some cell signal. I parked on the side of the road and called Jamie. We talked for a bit. He told me he was producing a documentary on the phenomenon for a class project, that he was stitching together news clippings and writing a script. Now he just had to find a classmate with a nice voice to read it in the university recording room.

I remember him being twelve years old, asking me to buy him a book on how to write screenplays. I just wish I could be there to see his first movie. Ah well. The love and joy we put into the world goes on even though we don’t.

He asked if I was okay. I told him yes. I told him I’d call again in a few days, knowing it was a lie. I told him I loved him and then hung up.

I tried to call Maddie. She didn’t pick up.

I’m okay with that.

June 20th

Clayton came by today. For the last time. He had his big camper with him and it was lugging a trailer.

“I suppose it won’t do any good to ask you to come with us again,” he said.

I told him it wouldn’t.

“Figured. That’s why I told Jayla to stay in the camper. She wouldn’t let you stay if I had brought her up here.”

“I appreciate the sentiment.”

He gave me a long, hard look. “You don’t got to die here, y’know?”

“Everybody has to die somewhere. Why not here?”

He didn’t have an answer for that. He just sighed, took a step back, and pointed toward something that was tied up to my porch. It had white splotches and shook its head. Marco.

“We had to leave the horses behind at the ranch. Just not possible to bring them. We left the gates open but I dunno if they can survive out there. Maybe a few of them. It’s a better chance than whatever the hell that thing is.”

I nodded. “And Marco?”

“He likes you. I figured he’d be happier here with you. And that you might be happy to have at least one friend around. There’s instructions on how to feed him in the saddle bag. We left some bags of Purina feed on the porch too…along with some of Jayla’s homemade corn whiskey you like.” He flashed me a coy smile.

I nodded. He hugged me tightly. “Good luck, brother. If there’s a hereafter, I really hope I get to see you there.”

I waved to him and Jayla as the camper drove off. I went and petted Marco for a bit and read through the instructions they left me before getting him some water.

Then I went inside and cried myself to sleep.

It felt nice.

June 22nd

I saw my dad. It was a dream, I think, or some kind of state between dreaming and being awake. I woke up in the middle of the night and saw him crossing the room to my bed. He got down on his knees and began to pray quietly over me. I couldn’t make out what he was saying.

“What are you praying for, dad?”

“Relief for your pain, son.”

“I have medicine for that.”

“I’m not talking about your cancer.”

I nodded. “I’m scared, Dad.”

“There’s no reason to be scared. It’s wonderful.”

I asked him if heaven was real. If he was with Mom.

“I couldn’t begin to describe it, Wade. Heaven exists outside of words and comprehension itself. We are all here. We are waiting for you. It will be a happy reunion.”

“You’re just a voice in my head, dad. It’s all nothing. There’s nothing. We go to nothing. I want to see you again…but I won’t. I’ll just sleep forever and that’s okay. I like to sleep.”

“Oh my boy,” he said delicately. He leaned over and kissed me on my forehead. His lips were cold. “I’ll see you in the wonder. I promise.”

And then I woke up for real. It was the dead of night. The spot where he had kissed me was still cold.

June 23rd

The darkness is growing faster. Nobody is sure why. A little over a month ago all the ‘squares’ were barely bigger than two Ford Mavericks back-to-back, now all nine of them are more than 15 miles long in every direction. No one who has gone into these squares has come back or sent any kind of communication.

I think most people now are assuming that whatever is inside the dark mass is destructive in nature. But maybe it’s not. Maybe whatever people find in there is desirable to the point they see no need to come back or that it’s simply transformative.

I hear Dad’s words coming back to me. I’ll see you in the wonder.

June 24th

I took Marco out to a nearby field. We trotted a bit. He’s such a gentle boy. Never too fast, never too rough. I think he can sense the sickness. They say horses have some sort of capacity for empathy, so why not?

On the way back, I looked out and I could see – far out, at the edge of my vision – a smidge of darkness moving ever so slowly in our direction.

Marco and I rode home. I made him dinner and went to bed.

June 25th

I think when I was a child, I tried to believe in God. I did. If you grew up in Ohio in the ‘90s, it’d be impossible not to grapple with the concept. I went through the motions. Every Sunday, I’d show up. I’d sing the songs. I’d eat the post-service lunches and pretend to like the old people who fawned over me.

But the thing that always tripped me up was Moses. Moses who had done everything his god asked him to do. Had suffered, had caused suffering, had brought the message to the people even when they didn’t want it, had led his people through the desert for 40 years – Moses, the most faithful servant, forbidden from enjoying the comforts of the Promised Land.

I think even as a kid, the conclusion I reached was if that kind of betrayal was the best that God could do for the children he supposedly loved, I wanted no part of it.

I’d rather go to hell if that was God. I want to be part of a heaven founded on kindness and love, not bloody, callous authority. If I can’t have the former, give me the flames.

Even as fear and death itself chews on my guts, I still believe that.

June 26th

I can see it now from my porch. West South Street is pretty much gone, which means the police department has been absorbed, along with most of downtown. I imagine by tomorrow morning, all of the town will be gone. The power plant, the baseball field, the school, the churches – all gone.

We moved here when Jamie was a baby. Maddie and I wanted to give him a nice, quiet life in a small town. And then dad came shortly after, took up in a mobile home by himself just to be near us before he moved into a parish house. It was a good life. Sure, commuting to Greenville everyday to go work at the firm was annoying but Jamie grew up healthy and happy. And even though things fell apart between me and Maddie, there are some good memories.

And now it’s all gone. And I don’t know why. Maybe Dad was right. God, in his infinite wisdom and cruelty, taking back the world he gave us bit by bit for our abdication. Or maybe we did it to ourselves. Or maybe it’s just because shit happens.

In any case, I hope whoever is at the controls figures out how to stop these things. I yearn for Jamie to have a nice, long life. Maddie too.

I want for a lot of things, it turns out.

I want to see my parents again.

I want there to be a God and a heaven, but not the ones I’ve heard about.

I want the forces that guide this universe to be benevolent instead of malicious or indifferent.

In spite of everything, I still want. And in wanting, something still remains of hope.

June 27th

I untied Marco from the porch last night to give him a chance to go. But he was still there this morning, the foolish creature. I imagine he’s made his mind up just as I’ve made mine.

The darkness is less than a mile out now. It’s like looking at a tornado in the distance. This afternoon, I’m going to take this journal into Greenville and send it to Todd Phanes, our family lawyer up in Kansas City, for safekeeping and to make sure it ends up in Jamie’s hands when the time is right – not that even I know when that time would be, I guess.

The pain is pretty bad now. I’ve fainted a few more times and I think the medicine is losing its potency or my body is just used to it now. But it doesn’t matter.

Some people who are inclined to traditional ways of thinking might call riding out to meet the darkness ‘suicide’ but I don’t see it that way. I’m just tired of waiting for the inevitability. I’m going to go meet it on my own terms. Marco and I, we’re gonna cross over and see what’s beyond the dark veil.

Maybe it’s oblivion. If it is, perhaps death will be painless at least.

But maybe it’s something else. Maybe it’s the wonder Dad was speaking of. I don’t know. I’m afraid, but it’s not a bad fear because I’m also excited. I’m in the middle of packing for me and Marco now and I can’t stop my hands from trembling with anticipation.

I’m going to go tonight, as soon as I’m back from mailing the package. I’m guessing we’ll ride out at dusk, my horse and I, just like a cowboy. Clayton would be amused, I think.

Maybe if I have the strength, I'll even risk asking Marco to gallop us towards our destiny just so I can feel the wind blow by my face one last time as we ride into the land of shadow.

Time to get on with it then. Let there be dark.