[Izulde]

Late June now. It's All-Star Weekend, Octopus League style, where fans around the country are getting their votes in to determine who will be named All-Stars, along with some other awards.

Do I expect any Secrets to be the receipient of any accolades? No. The team was that bad this year. Though I do find myself wishing Nigel had included the DH position in the All-Star voting. After all, we are a DH league and maybe Scotty could have qualified for that.

Sighing, I lie in my bed, my arms wrapped around my giant stuffed Eeyore, a get well present from my mother some years ago. The evening outside is warm and balmy, with just enough of a light breeze to add zest to the senses, the accompanying starlight and purple sky creating an aura of serene mystery and optimism. One has the sensation on this regal night that anything at all can happen, be it Good or Bad.

Only tonight my thoughts aren't on the potential shifts of life that seem to buzz in the air. Instead, they wander down the familiar, muchly beaten path of thoughts on girls. Yes, I know... with my stuffy hugging and my incessant thoughts of females, one would think me fifteen as opposed to twenty-five. But the latter age I indeed am.

More specifically, my mental musings morbid be, fixated as they are on that sad and unhappy valley of ashes that is the resting place of the death of relationship hopes. It is not just any deceased dream that is interred here, however. No, it is of a unique sort, that of those ethereal sylphs murdered by the cruelest way of extinction possible... the slow burn of actualization.

This method does not come in an instantaneous epiphany. That would be too blissfully brief, too heartfeltly humane. No, when one's enchanted visions concerning a beloved girl or boy are extinguished in this fashion, it is a realization that is gradual in nature.

We float along in our worlds of happy imaginings that are full of bright colours, songs, and dances, aflame with the joy that yes, yes, we *are* preferred, we *are* adored. Everything will end in the happily ever after common in the musicals and love stories we frequently borrow the stuff of in shaping our magically incarnated universe.

But then, little by little, bit by bit, we notice that holes are appearing in the velvet plush of our security blanket of love. The excuses come marching one by one: 'Oh, I'm not in the mood...'; 'I'm busy'; or even no excuse at all, just a terrifying silence whose black void is attempted to be patched over by a later excuse: 'My sister came over so I had to go'; 'I was working on homework so I didn't want to answer the door' and so on. At first we believe the objects of our affections, for after all, these are quite normal things that can and do happen to everyone.

Yet the gaps grow larger in size and more frequent in number. We begin to get the first inklings that something is not quite right. Yet, we do not want to believe what our instincts are telling us and so we begin to rationalize, to make excuses for them, all the while sitting in the chambers of our hearts, plucking at flowers and whispering in trembling voices as we pick petals: 'They love me, they love me not, they love me, they love me not, they love me..." all the while hoping, praying, that when the last piece is played out, that we will in the end land on their affirmed love for us. Yes, they *do* love us! Our sanctuary and visions need not be abandoned! Sound the trumpets, call out one and all, for we have won the day in this dark hour!

...But then time goes on, the crushing wheel of Fortune turning steadily onwards, the weight of the evidences that we can not ignore forever piling on until we are nearly suffocating from them. It is then, when we are near the breaking point, that we finally cry out the entireity of our held-back uncertainties and worries. We plead for honesty, for truth! Give it to us in black and white, and dull not the edge of the blade, no matter how sharp it be!

They listen, frown, and tilt their heads. Oh, but they did not realize that all this was going on! We have nothing to worry about, they reassure us. We are still favoured; we are still prized highly. Calmed and secure for that night, we go on our way.

But it doesn't last. The cycle of inconsistencies is renewed, we question again, they protest their fidelity, we are restored for a brief time, then are confronted with conflicts of stories, seek out answers, are whispered sweet words to, and so on.

This pattern continues for several times, each time they growing more and more weary of us, each time we becoming more and more uncertain as to the veracity of their claims.

Then the moment comes where both they and we are stretched to the breaking point and the truth comes out. They confess that they do not care so much for us and that either it is not our fault that they do not feel anything for us anymore, or that we are guilty of crimes that have caused them to lose their affection.

And yet, that final blow is not as crushing as one might expect. To be sure, we will cry and swear and believe there is nothing good with the world anymore. Our pain will last for a certain amount of time. We will get better, then slip and fall back into despair again, then climb back up again. We might well rise and fall many times before we are finally over them, but eventually we do reach a point where the crest is passed and we are on the other side. This is true of any shattered dream-world with Love as it God/Goddess-Creator.

However, those who are buried in the Valley of Ashes have a unique way of regaining the summit. Here, the feelings we have for them are frequently still strong after the actualization is complete and so we cry. We cry and cry and cry until we are nearly drowning in the river of tears we have created and there is nothing left to shed. Then, to keep from drowning in our sea of sorrow, and to save ourselves, we become cold and unfeeling, numb to those who had held our hearts in their hands and squeezed them until the beating muscles exploded into smithereens.

Frost and assassination of feeling is the only way to keep from dying.

Perhaps this is what Frost the poet meant when he said that he would hold with those who favour fire as a means of death, but at the second time, he would suffice with ice.

Oh, unhappy evening and miserable thoughts, why must you plague me?!

Where is my forever joy?!