Sin played his little tune, a sales pitch for the old men, the empty, and the lost. He played to their vanity but also their fear. A fear that had buried itself deep into their hearts and souls. A fear that whispered in their ears, a constant refrain, "Everyone else is just like you."

I am in the middle of this journey, and I am lost. My wood is dark but it flickers with light, bits clicking on and off, electrical matter sparks in the distance, and somewhere there is a screen of static, intermittent blacks and whites, hovering like witch-light on the horizon.

When I was five, I lived in a magical place in the middle the woods.

When I was a child, the world was big and scary. When I grew up, I learned it was small and even scarier.