The diary of Anne Charlston, undated.

God forgive me; I wish to escape. I wish it more than any long forgotten love or peace on the wide Earth. I wish to melt into the bliss of immorality and satisfy only the thirst of my own throat, desperate for the waters of pure being; where I can drown in my own consciousness without interruption from raging agency that seeks to wash me into pools sluiced with the blood of toil and duty. I have my own concerns and dreams and should not one person be able to pursue their own solipsistic agenda? Why is there need for others to hold us above the water when our limbs can work to this effect? I tire, O, how I tire. How could you have done it? To work entirely for the betterment of others and then lay yourself upon the cross as your reward? I see no justice. What shall I have at my conclusion? A cross to be strung up on? If I die it shall be under my own terms. But what can I do to secure my place in my own vision of future’s bright hall? I see it: strung up not with crosses but the brightest chandeliers, reflecting off the stain glass of the happiest memories. All those I love are there on the long table – a veritable Valhalla I’m envisioning it seems – feasting on the kindness we passed among each other in small parcels, perfectly timed to strike the other into the bliss of loving company. We drink the wit of past jests and become drunk, on occasion, on fits of ribaldry – a touch of the base to make us love more the sting of virtue. Is my father there? Does he sit at the head of the table? Or does he linger as a portrait on the wall, struck eternally in his most affable pose – the kindest reflection of his soul and a prayer that eternity shall see him as the painter did in that moment. Can I bring his shell to bear the countenance of the pure soul within? I have tried but am unequal to the task. My friends offer words but have abandoned me. I have no prospect of finding the love of man. I am a lonely wretch shackled with a hobgoblin whose chain fetters my ankle with the clank of doom. Oh God forgive these allusions!
Yet am I haunted more by the past when I had my freedom and moulded nothing from its clear air, breathing in and out, retaining nothing; holding breath for life yet not breathing life. Such do I see the curse of the reticent made manifest within me. We wish for solitude yet despise it. We long for love yet hold it at arm’s length. We wish for immortality but without the sacrifice of our mortality. How can we live yet not live? We want while not wanting and need without the requisite needs. I’m going mad. Perhaps my father is the only sane voice in this house. Staring at the combustion of ages and seeing it only fit for scorn. He was bellowing last night in what constitutes sleep for his wretched psyche, and his words were of the purest design to wrench my heart. Being distant, in my own room, I could not make out all that he sent to the heavens in caterwauls of pain – wishing, it seems, to only be heard and looked upon with pity and grace – but I could make out my mother’s name, spared the indignity of being scornfully attributed as he does with all others, including my own, placed in the highest circle of heaven which he knows he shall never reach, being as he is, an instrument of wrath - perhaps divinely purposed for this role, as all have their place in God’s design. Yet, despite all my misery I wish only for their reunion, and ours – this fallen, broken family. O how I miss you! My dearest sweet mother! I wept when father called your name and weep now in the writing of this pathetic journal. How could you so swiftly leave us? You see how everything fell to ruin the instant you were not among us to guide us as angels do. I have your hair yet nothing of its shimmer. I have your smile yet nothing of its warmth. I cannot take your place - none ever could.
Father knows this best of all as the best part of himself sits in the heavens whilst the worst languishes on Earth. Yet are we all shadows of ourselves...