Honeyblood

Change is both impossible and necessary. The mind and the heart lash out against change as desperately as they crave it. Even pain seems easier in comparison to a sudden, drastic change. It is always simpler to continue along the way things have been, even if it means sacrificing anything— everything in the process. After a certain amount of time, there comes a point where change seems unthinkable. To challenge the status quo would be a madness unlike anything else. Denying that urge, though— defying the desire to change— is what is truly inhuman. Not remaining the same. With the snow falling in the city, this morning seems like any other. There’s no light to see by, the windows shuttered closed. Tiny splintered cracks in the wood allow the barest filters of starlight to leak through, when they exist, but there’s none to be seen now. This room is as it always is: empty, cold, dark. It is easier to know this darkness than to chase an unknown light, but it has become impossible to remain here without dying in those same shadows. This morning truly could be like any other. The day could continue as every day here does, an endless misery, a prison of torment. It could be the same as it is always, each day before this one and likely each day after, the continuing pattern that will drag inexorably towards death, or worse. Or: today could be the day things change.

Special variant cover edition by Finch with the-finch-address.