Black rain falls up from the land to the sky, darkening the blue heavens to dull gray and turning the bright sun into a washed out white. The white sun illuminates in only shades of black and white the horror below on the land from whence the black rain falls.

The fingers of black hold the scene in place. Black fingers of rain, holding the people in a mockery of a still-life portrait. Still-life, the very essence of the rain… the black fingers clasping the living into poses of horror and twisting them to a frozen picture of a macabre dance. Death – holding life. Taunting. It will conquer all that is life, bright, or joyous. Whispering that there is more beyond the veil of death than what the living might suspect.

There, hidden by the veil, reveling in the black rain, that is where they dwell. Part of nature. Enemy of nature. Enemy of life. Enemy of sanity.

A steep ascent on a rain wetted hill all for a glimpse of what the veil hides. The sight is beyond the horrors of man. The sight reveals the war with the very sanity that is man’s world. Those beyond want us to know that there are horrors beyond. Lurking. Waiting. Anticipating the misstep that leads us to fall through the veil and be the soft delicious white broken bone they may suck the marrow from and thus savor the last remaining bits or our sanity and humanity.

The rain slickens the hill and I fall slip and tumble to the lands of man’s sanity. And yet, now I am not sane. I have seen what is beyond, and recognize the vitriol that it holds for man. It has looked at me and seen … what? I saw malice. But that might be because I am of the quick and it is from beyond the shroud of life. My essence recognized the horror of its being. That recognition will not allow me all the way back to the world of the modern man. The world of sanity and science is no longer my home.

I now truly know that my father should have been careful what he wished for. Sometimes even the prayers of non-believers are answered. Sometimes even those who do not wish it find belief.

The black rain still falls up for the land. The sky is still dark with its inky touch. With the sun still dulled to grays, I wonder where the colors have gone. I see the small bird crying. It sits on a branch over a path into the dark woods. Down the path, I see the masked one glance back at me and then scurry ahead. I step into myself and onto the path, and begin.