The Phantom of Your Future

 

A phantom is always upon you. There is no escaping it, but you can look away. It is what the rest of us are doing. Some say to stare it in the eye, but why choose disquiet over the calm? We have all heard what looking it directly in the eye could do, so many have gone mad. Some lose speech, others lose sleep, and few lose their smiles – the saddest, for they would soon lose their will to live. There simply is not enough reason to acknowledge it. You cannot make the phantom leave. Try, and you will perish.

There have been but few who survived the onslaught. Of them we seldom speak. Perhaps they were born different, or of an old warrior race. They say the ancients were able to make peace with their phantoms, to which they owe their glories. We do not preach that anymore, it is too dangerous. The passage of time has made the phantoms more gruesome.

The survivors themselves do not speak of their encounter. It is not that they refuse, but that they cannot. Our language does not afford them the ability. Of what we could salvage from their experience, we cannot comprehend, and of what we can comprehend, we cannot digest. They speak of futures and premonitions. Prophets of their own lives. Happy, strangely happy, they become. They tell us to do the same. But there simply is not enough reason, they still could not lose their phantom.

So, of them we do not speak. Of the phantom we do not think. The risk is just too great. It is best that you learn to look away.