Time was never the barrier it was supposed to be. I really should have known better by now, but perhaps I never would. As I stared in the grey abyss-or the green abyss, or the blue abyss, it was all the same to me-I wondered what all of this meant. Perhaps it meant nothing, never had and never would. Or perhaps it would mean nothing only until little Annie shot me in the face again. One never knew these things.

And there is was. The gun shot to the head. Jeremiah. He was always a good friend of mine. And a bullfrog my father used to sing of. Another shot to the head. Is this a semi-automatic pistol or a sub-machine gun? I'm holier than Swiss cheese, though twice as foul. The Holy Spirit doesn't know me when I want it to. But that has never mattered much. The Devil's Apprentice still considers me a saint, above both his aspirations and life. Funny that evil would idolize good and that Satan would send poor little children to corrupt those he deems potentially angelic.

But I am not angelic. I am, of course, as corrupt as every human. Purity has never come easily too me and it's much to late to get it back now. All I can do is wash myself in the blood and hope it doesn't stain my hands like it does others. All I can do is strive for perfection, but if I were to reach it, what would I do with myself then? Strive for nothing? I can achieve that whenever I like.

I am worrying over nothing. The worst that can happen is that the world will blow up. That would be a real shame, wouldn't it? The loss of so much life . . . all the pretty trees and animals . . . but humans would cease, and perhaps it is a price worth paying.

My eternal stalker does not like this train of thought. But he is probably a hallucination anyway, a delusion of my corroded mind. He of course doesn't agree. But what delusion would like to be called such? Perhaps I am merely a delusion . . . a creation of another mind, here to suffer for their amusement . . . God may not approve of this theory. Though in that case, the imaginer would be my God- and a cruel one at that. No, I think I would rather believe in a higher power that has purpose for the madness.

And as I slip into my own rantings, the rest of the world disappears and I am alone. Not even delusions can reach me in this black abyss that is so much better and worse than the grey abyss of previous inspection. Part of my heart aches for the green-grey-or-perhaps-blue abyss I had been before seeing, but it is of little consequence if that abyss has swallowed itself into its own black, perhaps never to wake.

Or maybe that is another delusion?