PART TWO

THE DREAM OF THE CANNIBAL SPIRIT
 

 Now sir, young Fortinbras,
 Of unimproved mettle hot and full,
Hath in the skirts of Norway here and there
 Sharked up a list of lawless resolutes
 For food and diet to some enterprise
 That hath a stomach in't.
                          - William Shakespeare, "Hamlet"
 

  When the green field comes off like a lid,
 Revealing what was much better hid,
 Unpleasant;
 And look!  Behind, without a sound
 The woods have come up and are standing round
 In deadly crescent.
 And the bolt is sliding in its groove,
 Outside the window is the black remover's van,
 And now, with sudden, swift emergence
Come the women in dark glasses, the hump-backed surgeons,
 And the scissor-man.
                                                  - W. H. Auden, "The Witnesses"

Excerpt from the diary of Ryan Kilpatrick-MacLeod:

          In our violent, deadly lives, it becomes only too easy for us to develop a callousness over our hearts.  We begin to view friends as liabilities and life as a cheap commodity.  But each spark of life, no matter how misguided or corrupt, is infinitely precious.  It is the greatest of all powers to create life, one that Gaia in Her infinite wisdom reserves for Herself.  We can perform an act, a ritual if you will, that invokes Gaia's power, but only She can choose when She will exercise it.  On the other hand, the Wyrm gives us all the power to kill.  Think on that the next time that you are faced, for whatever reason, with the decision to take a life.

                                                                                            - Ryan Kilpatrick-MacLeod