You mourn for what you think you are missing, yet refuse to look, listen ... feel for what could be yours if you only took a moment. You mourn for what you perceive is out of reach, without ever extending your grasp; without ever seeking to discover if the mirage is, in fact, real.

You claim to be seekers after the truth, yet live ... forever ... in a world of lies. You claim to want the answers, yet refuse to accept the ones disclosed. Who has the answers? Are they held only by remote and uncaring deities? Hidden in the pages of a long lost book? Locked within the secrets of the atom? Is what you perceive the truth? Or merely a trick of the light? Are you so busy asking that you have no time remaining to listen?

Why, then, ask ... if you do not really wish to know? Do you so value the present that you cannot bear to view anything else? Do you so value the known that you cannot bear the unknown? Even when the answer will only enrich your lives? Do you know that by questioning, you are only inviting responses that you may not wish to hear?

The truth of the matter is that all anyone wants is acceptance: Acceptance by your friends, acceptance by your family, acceptance ... by yourselves. The one thing everyone shares is that no one is the same. Every thought, every action, every word is both enriched and tainted by your individual perception. You are held prisoner by that which makes you unique... and alike. So you stand as madmen, shouting silently at what you presume to be an unhearing world.

You struggle for change, yet resist it with every effort. You cling to what you know, no matter how ill-conceived that may be. You regret your choices but make no effort to learn from your experience.

And you continue to ask.

I hear you.

I am one of you.

I am ... the Nightcrawler.

END