The needle in my arm just hangs there. The burning sensations have disappeared. I am becoming numb as I turn ashen. I see the lights becoming a blur. As I lay on my bed, I think finally I have killed my pain. My breathe becomes shallow, each one seems like my last. I can no longer hear the noises, everything is simply a buzzing in my ears. Perhaps this is it, perhaps I will not come back this time. As I slip into unconsciousness, I feel a slight chill ,as I enter the blackness the world grows cold around me.

I have a mirror cut from black glass, it stands in a frame hewn from dark wood. The surface is finely polished so that your reflection can be seen in the faintest light. Some people who see it think it is quite odd, but it is very practical you see. Because when I look in my dark mirror I see my truest self, not a pretty lie that the world wants me to see.

I sit quietly as you walk by, but you do not notice me. I find reasons to be near you but I feel unsure of myself. I go home and hide in my room as I look in the mirror I do not like what I see. Perhaps if I were thinner you would notice me. I skip breakfast and nibble at my lunch. I go home and eat my dinner then I throw it up. I toss and turn all night hoping tomorrow will be the day. I put on my clothes and they do not fit right. I look at my hair and I see that it is thinner so I think if I dye it perhaps it will look right. I go to class and sit near you, but you never look my way. I cannot figure out what is wrong with me, so I think of another way. Perhaps if I was thinner, then you would see me. I get a few pills from a friend so that I will not be hungry all of the time. I bump into you and you just look at me funny. I am not sure what it means, I just say sorry and walk on. I look in the mirror and I don't like what I see. I am still to fat, perhaps that is why you won't notice me. My mother finds me on the floor of our bathroom. I wake up in the hospital the room begins to spin. I wonder why everyone looks worried. I have an IV in my arm and it makes me feel ugly. I thought this was how it is done. I see the pictures in the magazine, they are all so pretty and thin and look so happy it seems. It turns out that what I thought was helping wasn't good for me. I am just lying here in my hospital bed dying for you to notice me.

The chess board is not square it is round. The pieces do not all look the same. The kings and queens change erratically and the game is not always fair. Pieces do not conform to strategic norms and many are often sacrificed for what is foolishness. Few are the knights and many are the castles and bishops that block the path of the pawns. The castles hold power and watch as kings and queens fall, while the bishops spew false hope and tell lies that they think the unwashed masses want to hear. Piece by piece the game unravels as the world falls into disarray. Hope is a commodity that is in short supply as I one of the pawns struggles to climb up the rung of the ladder, only to get knocked back two spaces. How cruel is the game and how unfair is life, if only we could have a equal playing field.

Leaders stare at each other and pretend that they are kings. Armies march on parade as nations look on with pride. Poverty fills the streets as children play in the dirt. Threats are hurled as young men are sent to war. The rich consume the resources of the world like Locust devouring a wheat field. Citizens are fed a diet of lies as the puppet masters make their plans . posturing and preening while others bear the burden of their selfish ways. Such are the way of governments as they rattle the Sabre for no reason at all.

Shards of the pieces of broken lives lay along a rugged path. Lost hopes and tear stained dreams lay forgotten. The world walks by them and gives it no thought. Prayers go up but there seems to be no answer, but if you look closely and follow the path you will see where all of the misery ends, up on a hill called Calvary, on an old rugged tree. Where the son of God was crucified for you and I, that we may be free from sin and gain eternal life.

The orator speaks as the masses run towards the flame. Not the light of knowledge, but the radiant beacon of ignorance. The masses embrace the false comfort of surrender as they bask in the light. Life is too hard and we must not think for ourselves. Release us from responsibility they cry, give us our desires and protect us as we give up bits of our freedom for false security. Many are mesurized by the hypnotic words of the Sphengali's that promise them everything, but deliver little. The fault of your life is too much freedom surrender and be at ease. To those who go willingly the dissenter are the obstacle that must be overcome. As the mass delusion carries the masses to their doom, some struggle against the light of ignorance, but in what seems a futile fight. The curtain begins to fall on freedom as democracy is replaced with lies. So goes the book of liberty as the chapter of the script of ignorance heralds the end of a story as freedom is closed out of the scene.