I’m a ghoul in my own drama, haunting the trodden paths in my living and working spaces and within my mind.  The cold comfort of solitary routine.  The Chimera of Belonging swoops and darts in shadows at the limits of my vision, its leather and gossamer wings beating heavy and lilting notes of whispered promises of warm embraces just over the next horizon, just past the next bend.  Fleeting glimpses of shadows of what might be, delights for the taking but for just a few more steps, just one more circuit.  Its tail beckons with a soft and sibilant:

Follow me.

Follow me.

Thisss way…

The velvety scales of the undulating serpent glisten and reflect subdued hues in the half-light of confused thought.  Occasional sparks of intense color stab spikes into the backs of my eyes, leaving behind ghostly halos that cannot be blinked clear as the beckoning tail continues its languid swaying and all the while it implores:

Follow me.

Follow me.

Thisss time will be different, I promisss…

And back again to the beginning, to those same worn paths, those same cold spaces both real and imagined.