I have been waiting for the storm forever now. The rage of the storm sweeps to destruction all that lies before it. But the eye is the heart of the storm, and that, they tell me, remains calm. This is true and I know why (the air there is dead.) I know why the eye remains solitary, silent and still. It is because the eye is watching. Always watching. It needs silence and stillness to continue without distraction. (Life is the biggest distraction of all). Sometimes the eye watches for me. I know this too.

I feel that I have to reach that calm somehow, must see it up close. Why that is so necessary I don’t know yet. (Maybe I am just a watcher as well) But there are some things within us that we know without anyone ever telling us: we know that God is good but sometimes he is away and cannot attend to our pain, that love is good but hope is better, that we must step on grass lightly in the early morning so it springs back whole and green once the tread of our feet have passed. And I know that I must reach the eye of the storm.That dead eye.) I must watch for it as it watches for me.

I have things to do everyday (Life to be lived). I go through the day and sometimes even through the night completing what is required of me, and sometimes my burden is heavy but sometimes I move with the ease of a little sparrow in flight. Sometimes I don’t remember the storm that gathers ahead of me. Sometimes I can’t see the clouds (they drift ragtag and dark in the far sky). Those days are good for me and for everyone around me. Especially for the children (Children can see further). For on those days I am with them body, soul and spirit and my mind is not constantly clenched in fear of the knowledge I have.

My children are small and unable to comprehend the nature of the storm. But I have told them more than I have told anyone else, for in their innocence they sometimes have more wisdom and more understanding than older people. I was like my children once, knowing nothing of life and even less of death. And even when my childhood was past that innocence clung to me. Sometimes when I contemplate the storm and it’s meaning I also think of when I lost that innocence. I don’t know when or where it happened (clouds begin to gather in a clear blue sky), but I feel that it is somehow important to pinpoint the exact moment when my youth and inexperience sloughed off me like lifeless skin.

My heart breaks for them, the children (Life will teach them well). I know that they will not understand why what happened had to happen; the inevitability of events will escape their sight now, hurting them and tearing them apart. But deep inside I hope that one day they will realize in which direction the winds of truth blew. I hope that like me they will realize that there is only one path to take, and that the normalcy that everyone so harangues me with is no more than a distant illusion (there is no sun).

I think of him sometimes, this man on whom I have spent my love and my life and I find that I still love him. But it is the thought of him that I love more these days than the presence of him. There was a time long ago when I would have shared with him the knowledge that I have gained, how clearly I can see death as she approaches to save me from the coming storm, but those days were long ago and far away (a different country). Now I know that he lives within the boundaries of his own world, and that this was his choice not mine. Even though we share children, a bed and a life, I can never enter the places where he dwells. He chose not to enter my world, and now I no longer have the strength to follow him down the paths that he knows.

When I have left, it will seem to him a great mystery how he could not have seen me all this time. I will explain it all to him then. I will tell him: I must lose this form to regain my voice. (Clouds can change shape).

People around me try to make me forget as if in forgetfulness and sleep lie the answer to all I ask. They don’t realize that I know. I have no more questions to ask, no more answers to find except one. And no one but I can find the answer to that final question. I shall have to do it myself and alone. But I cannot explain all this to them, because I know that they will not understand now. Perhaps when it is the time for them to seek answers, perhaps then they will know how truth can be so obvious and so unreachable at the same time.

For now I smile and try to let them think that I can hear what they say. I know that they watch me. They watch even my thoughts and it is only unexpected snatches of privacy I get here and there even in my mind when they are too weary or too relaxed or careless. They know I have nowhere to go. (They know the storm approaches). It will be okay, I tell myself, the fear will go away. (As if it ever does.) I have trained myself to remain hidden. Even when I am in full view they cannot always see me. I can make myself smaller than the head of a pin. And even when there is thunder crashing all around me, they cannot hear it. So I will wait just a little longer; it will be all right. In a little while none of this will matter.

I sit serene and silent as I watch the storm approach. (The deadeye watches.) For now I know it is only the stillness within myself that will allow me to reach the final calm within the eye of the storm. And as I wait without fear and anger, as I sit here in tranquil longing, a flashing bolt of sudden lightning reaches towards me, the sharp tip pierces my eye, penetrating deep into every atom of my being in a dark sunburst of bloody red and who I am no longer remains to hear the deep sound of the thunder as it crashes through my skull a split second later.