When we awoke, we found a great curtain of linked metal rungs had been lowered to earth from the sky. The chain mail drape connected land and sky and ran as far the eye could see, across the ocean ... [+]
Wounds cannot stay--
Only as fading white lines of memory--
All is forgotten with
Time, who steals the importance
Of the sting of suffering.
If, one day, this anguish will mean
Nothing to me,
Let me stay in my agony
So I will never be deprived
Of the brilliant, all-consuming,
Purifying pain.