I apologize, for I was again distracted from my novel by horror – reminiscent of my distraction by “Parallax” while I was working on editing The Loneliness of Stars. I wrote two things with relations to Dark Aeons; one of which was my first real poem! I can’t say it’s very good, but really speaks to me. It’s inspired by a unique vision of Hell that I have as represented by the ultimate loneliness – unable to interact or even know if the existence of others, while at the same time unable to do anything, imprisoned endlessly in a floating sphere that you cannot see out of. Similar in theme to “The Man in Amber” in some respects, but also different in its emphasis on loneliness. The entire poem is as follows:

The Loneliness of the Spheres

They sing their songs of sorrow
But I cannot hear
They sing their songs of pain
But I cannot hear
I add my voice to the song
But no one can hear

I am alone
Eternal solitude is my being
I am afraid
Eternal fear is my being
I am unoccupied
Eternal sloth is my being

Around me there is darkness
Darkness is my life
Around me I feel nothing
Deadened is my life
Around me there is nothing
In my life there is nothing

Eternity is my name
Loneliness is my being

The song of emptiness goes undiscovered
The song of loss is never heard
The song of pain is never wept

The spheres float endlessly through the empty infinite
Never touching, never seeing
Each protecting a life-soul-essence
From the hungering dark outside

But do the spheres seek ever to consider
The thought-processes of their wards?
For though the spheres have hereby banished their solitude
Have their wards banished theirs?

And if the wards then have banished their isolation
Why is it then that they sing?
Why do their songs of pain and loss
Echo in the vastness between
Never heard by their own
And listened to by those only who cannot hear?

In addition to that, I have also begun work on another horror short story: “Afflatus Divine,” which tells of a supernatural entity that feeds off of the creativity of humans. It will be a three-part story; I just have finished the first part (though undoubtedly I will change the latter half of it significantly during the editing process), and hope to write the next two over the course of the next week or so. Currently it stands at about sixteen and a half pages – so I’m estimating a final total length of fiftyish pages for this story. One of the longer ones.

Now that I have finished the first part, however, I am diving back into The Libel of Blood for a bit. I am going to see if I can finish the rough draft by mid-March!