Uma história para crianças

One, two, three, four,
life is pain and nothing more.

Five, six, seven, eight,
only Death can celebrate.

[de uma canção infantil de Gothland]

Midnight lowered her head. "Then what happened?"

"I spent eight years on the road, using my skills to indulge the one passion I had cultivated since I had been a boy: travel. But wherever I would go, people were the same.Poverty and inequality were as widespread as luxury and splendour. I had hoped to find fellowship and equality: instead I found pettiness and exploitation. Somehow I thought I would escape the betrayals of my youth and find a place where honesty and decency prevailed, but no such place exists. Not in this life."

Midnight hung her head. "I'm sorry for your pain."

Cyric shrugged. "Life is pain. I've come to accept that. But don't pity me just because my vision is clearer than yours. Pity yourself. You'll wake to the truth soon enough."

Scott Ciencin, Shadowdale

(- Não tenhas medo, disseram os marinheiros mortos.
Nós somos a dança do mar.)

[pintura: Caspar David Friedrich, navio naufragado ao luar]