It lies in wait like a snake stalking its prey; curled in a corner, invisible. But then it's staring you in the face and you realize it's there only at the last moment. Like a surprise party. You can almost see the balloons. Yes, there they are, red green and blue all at once. A blur of reality, a grain of hope, before the fear fills your very being and everything dissipates in a cloud of lost beginnings.You feel its dark tendrils wrap around your heart, feel it fill your mind with something you can't even begin to describe. Words are not real here. Thoughts are merely a trace of what you might have known. Sanity is lost to the hungry claws of pain. Your mind is a blank slate, wiped clean of the known, the unknown, and everything in between. Black. Cold. Empty. And then there it is, the red balloon, floating up, up, up into a new life. Surprise, it seems to scream. Yet you feel no shock as the balloon shrivels to a wrinkled piece of rubber. No shock as your body mimics the balloon, as it empties itself of memories and light, for there is nothing left now. Surprise.
