Men walked into darkness
and called the silence empty.

But the moon was watching.

A contest opened beneath its pale eye,
an invitation without a door,
where judgments were rendered
upon the havebeens,
the havenots,
the forgotten names
still carrying yesterday's wages.

Long absence
builds strange empires.

Stone upon stone,
shadow upon shadow,
until the kingdom forgets
who first laid the foundation.

I followed the ophidian patterns
through corridors without names,
following the same black thread
until it became an ebon knot...

tight enough to hold a mystery,
loose enough to let one escape.

Perhaps that is what darkness is:

not the absence of light,
but the place where unfinished things
remain present.

A fallen knight beneath the moon.

A donkey carrying wages
it will never spend.

A kingdom waiting
for someone to remember its name.

And somewhere beyond the silence,

the knot remains.

Waiting.

Unopened.

Unbroken.


Penned by my hand on the 17th of Chronos, in the year 1012 AF.