[inescapable]

[The sky tore across the bowl of the valley. There was a light rain, yet we could see stars. 

Nothing made sense. 

Not the still trees, whose leaves wept drizzle; not the dark turned dirty by an ill-conceived moon; not even the earth, which gave beneath our feet: every step a misstep, every step taken in blind faith, in hope and peril, and in most, the peril proved out.

Nothing was as we wanted it. 

The nearest we came was a delusional ignorance—if we took a thing and turned it in the light just so, we could convince ourselves it was real, and what we needed. But shift the light, move the thing, and back sprang reality, sure as darkness, inescapable]